Quantum computers can break the RSA and El Gamal public-key cryptosystems, since they can factor integers and extract discrete logarithms. If we believe that quantum computers will someday become a reality, we would like to have \emph{post-quantum} cryptosystems which can be implemented today with classical computers, but which will remain secure even in the presence of quantum attacks. In this article we show that the McEliece cryptosystem over rational Goppa codes resists precisely the attacks to which the RSA and El Gamal cryptosystems are vulnerable---namely, those based on generating and measuring coset states. This eliminates the approach of strong Fourier sampling on which almost all known exponential speedups by quantum algorithms are based. Specifically, we show that the natural case of the Hidden Subgroup Problem to which the McEliece cryptosystem reduces cannot be solved by strong Fourier sampling, or by any measurement of a coset state. We start with recent negative results on quantum algorithms for Graph Isomorphism, which are based on particular subgroups of size two, and extend them to subgroups of arbitrary structure, including the automorphism groups of Goppa codes. This allows us to obtain the first rigorous results on the security of the McEliece cryptosystem in the face of quantum adversaries, strengthening its candidacy for post-quantum cryptography. Additionally, we establish a variant of a conjecture of Kempe and Shalev on the subgroups of $S_n$ that can be efficiently reconstructed by quantum Fourier sampling.

We show that any quantum algorithm deciding whether an input function $f$ from $[n]$ to $[n]$ is 2-to-1 or almost 2-to-1 requires $\Theta(n)$ queries to $f$. The same lower bound holds for determining whether or not a function $f$ from $[2n-2]$ to $[n]$ is surjective. These results yield a nearly linear $\Omega(n/\log n)$ lower bound on the quantum query complexity of $\cl{AC}^0$. The best previous lower bound known for any $\cl{AC^0}$ function was the $\Omega ((n/\log n)^{2/3})$ bound given by Aaronson and Shi's $\Omega(n^{2/3})$ lower bound for the element distinctness problem.

We show that quantum algorithms can be used to re-prove a classical theorem in approximation theory, Jackson's Theorem, which gives a nearly-optimal quantitative version of Weierstrass's Theorem on uniform approximation of continuous functions by polynomials. We provide two proofs, based respectively on quantum counting and on quantum phase estimation.

Quantum discord is a quantifier of non-classical correlations that goes beyond the standard classification of quantum states into entangled and unentangled ones. Although it has received considerable attention, it still lacks any precise interpretation in terms of some protocol in which quantum features are relevant. Here we give quantum discord its first operational meaning in terms on consumption of entanglement in an extended quantum state merging protocol. We go on to show that the asymmetry of quantum discord is related to the performance imbalance in quantum state merging and dense coding.

The quantum channel capacity gives the ultimate limit for the rate at which quantum data can be reliably transmitted through a noisy quantum channel. Degradable quantum channels are among the few channels whose quantum capacities are known. Given the quantum capacity of a degradable channel, it remains challenging to find a practical coding scheme which approaches capacity. Here we discuss code designs for the detected-jump channel, a degradable channel with practical relevance describing the physics of spontaneous decay of atoms with detected photon emission. We show that this channel can be used to simulate a binary classical channel with both erasures and bit-flips. The capacity of the simulated classical channel gives a lower bound on the quantum capacity of the detected-jump channel. When the jump probability is small, it almost equals the quantum capacity. Hence using a classical capacity approaching code for the simulated classical channel yields a quantum code which approaches the quantum capacity of the detected-jump channel.

The counterfeit coin problem requires us to find all false coins from a given bunch of coins using a balance scale. We assume that the balance scale gives us only ``balanced'' or ``tilted'' information and that we know the number k of false coins in advance. The balance scale can be modeled by a certain type of oracle and its query complexity is a measure for the cost of weighing algorithms (the number of weighings). In this paper, we study the quantum query complexity for this problem. Let Q(k,N) be the quantum query complexity of finding all k false coins from the N given coins. We show that for any k and N such that k < N/2, Q(k,N)=O(k^{1/4}), contrasting with the classical query complexity, \Omega(k\log(N/k)), that depends on N. So our quantum algorithm achieves a quartic speed-up for this problem. We do not have a matching lower bound, but we show some evidence that the upper bound is tight: any algorithm, including our algorithm, that satisfies certain properties needs \Omega(k^{1/4}) queries.

These lecture notes focus on the application of ideas of locality, in particular Lieb-Robinson bounds, to quantum many-body systems. We consider applications including correlation decay, topological order, a higher dimensional Lieb-Schultz-Mattis theorem, and a nonrelativistic Goldstone theorem. The emphasis is on trying to show the ideas behind the calculations. As a result, the proofs are only sketched with an emphasis on the intuitive ideas behind them, and in some cases we use techniques that give very slightly weaker bounds for simplicity. This is a preliminary version of the lecture notes, with the goal of getting the notes out close to the end of the school. Comments welcome.

The present paper introduces a new operator norm that captures the distinguishability of quantum strategies in the same sense that the trace norm captures the distinguishability of quantum states or the diamond norm captures the distinguishability of quantum channels. Characterizations of its unit ball and dual norm are established via strong duality of a semidefinite optimization problem. A full, formal proof of strong duality is presented for the semidefinite optimization problem in question. The new norm and its properties are employed to generalize a state discrimination result of Ref. [GW05]. The generalized result states that for any two convex sets S,T of quantum strategies there exists a fixed interactive measurement scheme that successfully distinguishes any choice of s \in S from any choice of t \in T with bias proportional to the minimal distance between the sets S and T as measured by the new norm.

For a parameter $t\in (0,1)$ and an integer $n$, we choose at random a vector subspace $V_n\subset \mathbb{C}^k\otimes\mathbb{C}^n$ of dimension $N\sim tnk$. We exhibit a cone that partitions $\R_+^k$ into two connected components, such that, for any sequence in the complement of the cone, the probability that it occurs as the set of singular values of some vector of $V_n$ is either $0$ or $1$ as $n\to\infty$. Our proof relies on free probability, random matrix theory, complex analysis and matrix analysis techniques. The main result result comes together with a law of large numbers for the singular value decomposition of the eigenvectors corresponding to large eigenvalues of a random truncation of a matrix with high multiplicity.

Secure two-party cryptography is possible if the adversary's quantum storage device suffers imperfections. For example, security can be achieved if the adversary can store strictly less then half of the qubits transmitted during the protocol. This special case is known as the bounded-storage model, and it has long been an open question whether security can still be achieved if the adversary's storage were any larger. Here, we answer this question positively and demonstrate a two-party protocol which is secure as long as the adversary cannot store even a small fraction of the transmitted pulses. We also show that security can be extended to a larger class of noisy quantum memories.

We investigate whether size imposes a fundamental constraint on the efficiency of small thermal machines. We analyse in detail a model of a small self-contained refrigerator consisting of three qubits. We show that this system can reach the Carnot efficiency, and thus demonstrate that there exists no complementarity between size and efficiency.

The peculiar properties of quantum mechanics allow two remote parties to grow a private, secret key, even if the eavesdropper can do anything permitted by the laws of nature. In quantum key distribution (QKD) the parties exchange non-orthogonal or entangled quantum states to generate quantum correlated classical data. Consequently, QKD implementations always rely on detectors to measure the relevant quantum property of the signal states. However, practical detectors are not only sensitive to quantum states. Here we show how an eavesdropper can exploit such deviations from the ideal behaviour: We demonstrate experimentally how the detectors in two commercially available QKD systems can be fully remote controlled using specially tailored bright illumination. This makes it possible to acquire the full secret key without leaving any trace; we propose an eavesdropping apparatus built of off-the-shelf components. The loophole is likely to be present in most QKD systems using avalanche photo diodes (APDs) to detect single photons. We believe that our findings are a vital step for strengthening the security of practical QKD, through iterations of identifying technological deficiencies causing loopholes and patching them.

We study tensor norms over Banach spaces and their relation to quantum information theory, in particular, the connection to Bell inequalities and two-prover games. We consider a version of the Hilbertian tensor norm $\gamma_2$, and its dual $\gamma_2^*$, allowing for arbitrary output-alphabet sizes. We establish direct-product theorems for these tensor norms, and prove a generalized Grothendieck inequality in terms of the tensor norm $\gamma_2$. Furthermore, we investigate the connection between the Hilbertian tensor norm and the set of quantum probability distributions and show two applications to quantum information theory: first, we give an alternative proof of the perfect parallel repetition theorem for entangled XOR games; and second, we prove a new upper bound on the maximal violation of Bell inequalities.

We show that Tsirelson's problem concerning the set of quantum correlations and Connes' embedding problem on finite approximations in von Neumann algebras (known to be equivalent to Kirchberg's QWEP conjecture) are essentially equivalent. Specifically, Tsirelson's problem asks whether the set of bipartite quantum correlations generated between tensor product separated systems is the same as the set of correlations between commuting C*-algebras. Connes' embedding problem asks whether any separable II$_1$ factor is a subfactor of the ultrapower of the hyperfinite II$_1$ factor. We show that an affirmative answer to Connes' question implies a positive answer to Tsirelson's. Conversely, a positve answer to a matrix valued version of Tsirelson's problem implies a positive one to Connes' problem.

Landauer's erasure principle exposes an intrinsic relation between thermodynamics and information theory: the erasure of information stored in a system, S, requires an amount of work proportional to the entropy of that system. This entropy, H(S|O), depends on the information that a given observer, O, has about S, and the work necessary to erase a system may therefore vary for different observers. Here, we consider a general setting where the information held by the observer may be quantum-mechanical, and show that an amount of work proportional to H(S|O) is still sufficient to erase S. Since the entropy H(S|O) can now become negative, erasing a system can result in a net gain of work (and a corresponding cooling of the environment).

Device-independent quantum key distribution aims to provide key distribution schemes whose security is based on the laws of quantum physics but which does not require any assumptions about the internal working of the quantum devices used in the protocol. This strong form of security, unattainable with standard schemes, is possible only when using correlations that violate a Bell inequality. We provide a general security proof valid for a large class of device-independent quantum key distribution protocols in a model in which the raw key elements are generated by causally independent measurement processes. The validity of this independence condition may be justifiable in a variety of implementations and is necessarily satisfied in a physical realization where the raw key is generated by N separate pairs of devices. Our work shows that device-independent quantum key distribution is possible with key rates comparable to those of standard schemes.

It is known that the number of different classical messages which can be communicated with a single use of a classical channel with zero probability of decoding error can sometimes be increased by using entanglement shared between sender and receiver. It has been an open question to determine whether entanglement can ever offer an advantage in terms of the zero-error communication rates achievable in the limit of many channel uses. In this paper we show, by explicit examples, that entanglement can indeed increase asymptotic zero-error capacity. Interestingly, in our examples the quantum protocols are based on the root systems of the exceptional Lie groups E7 and E8.

We prove that the family of embezzlement states defined by van Dam and Hayden [vanDamHayden2002] is universal for both quantum and classical entangled two-prover non-local games with an arbitrary number of rounds. More precisely, we show that for each $\epsilon>0$ and each strategy for a k-round two-prover non-local game which uses a bipartite shared state on 2m qubits and makes the provers win with probability $\omega$, there exists a strategy for the same game which uses an embezzlement state on $2m + 2m/\epsilon$ qubits and makes the provers win with probability $\omega-\sqrt{2\epsilon}$. Since the value of a game can be defined as the limit of the value of a maximal 2m-qubit strategy as m goes to infinity, our result implies that the classes QMIP*_{c,s}[2,k] and MIP*_{c,s}[2,k] remain invariant if we allow the provers to share only embezzlement states, for any completeness value c in [0,1] and any soundness value s < c. Finally we notice that the circuits applied by each prover may be put into a very simple universal form.

A generic quantum channel can be represented in terms of a unitary interaction between the information-carrying system and a noisy environment. Here, the minimal number of quantum Gaussian environmental modes required to provide a unitary dilation of a multi-mode bosonic Gaussian channel is analyzed both for mixed and pure environment corresponding to the Stinespring representation. In particular, for the case of pure environment we compute this quantity and present an explicit unitary dilation for arbitrary bosonic Gaussian channel. These results considerably simplify the characterization of these continuous-variable maps and can be applied to address some open issues concerning the transmission of information encoded in bosonic systems.

Various authors have considered schemes for {\it quantum tagging}, that is, authenticating the classical location of a classical tagging device by sending and receiving quantum signals from suitably located distant sites, in an environment controlled by an adversary whose quantum information processing and transmitting power is potentially unbounded. This task raises some interesting new questions about cryptographic security assumptions, as relatively subtle details in the security model can dramatically affect the security attainable. We consider here the case in which the tag is cryptographically secure, and show how to implement tagging securely within this model.

Using convex optimization, we propose entanglement-assisted quantum error correction procedures that are optimized for given noise channels. We demonstrate through numerical examples that such an optimized error correction method achieves higher channel fidelities than existing methods. This improved performance, which leads to perfect error correction for a larger class of error channels, is interpreted in at least some cases by quantum teleportation, but for general channels this interpretation does not hold.

We propose a scalable way to construct a 3D cluster state for fault-tolerant topological one-way computation (TOWC) even if the entangling two-qubit gates succeed with a small probability. It is shown that fault-tolerant TOWC can be performed with the success probability of the two-qubit gate such as 0.5 (0.1) provided that the conditional error probability of the two-qubit gate is less than $0.040\%$ ($0.016\%$). Furthermore, the resource usage is considerably suppressed compared to the conventional fault-tolerant schemes with probabilistic two-qubit gates.

We define the task of {\it quantum tagging}, that is, authenticating the classical location of a classical tagging device by sending and receiving quantum signals from suitably located distant sites, in an environment controlled by an adversary whose quantum information processing and transmitting power is unbounded. We define simple security models for this task and briefly discuss alternatives. We illustrate the pitfalls of naive quantum cryptographic reasoning in this context by describing several protocols which at first sight appear unconditionally secure but which, as we show, can in fact be broken by teleportation-based attacks. We also describe some protocols which cannot be broken by these specific attacks, but do not prove they are unconditionally secure. We review the history of quantum tagging protocols, which we first discussed in 2002 and described in a 2006 patent (for an insecure protocol). The possibility has recently been reconsidered by other authors. All the more recently discussed protocols of which we are aware were either previously considered by us in 2002-3 or are variants of schemes then considered, and all are provably insecure.

We present a fault-tolerant semi-global control strategy for universal quantum computers. We show that N-dimensional array of qubits where only (N-1)-dimensional addressing resolution is available is compatible with fault-tolerant universal quantum computation. What is more, we show that measurements and individual control of qubits are required only at the boundaries of the fault-tolerant computer, i.e. holographic fault-tolerant quantum computation. Our model alleviates the heavy physical conditions on current qubit candidates imposed by addressability requirements and represents an option to improve their scalability.

Forster, Winkler, and Wolf recently showed that weak nonlocality can be amplified by giving the first protocol that distills a class of nonlocal boxes (NLBs) [Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 120401 (2009)]. We first show that their protocol is optimal among all non-adaptive protocols. We next consider adaptive protocols. We show that the depth 2 protocol of Allcock et al. [Phys. Rev. A 80, 062107, (2009)] performs better than previously known adaptive depth 2 protocols for all symmetric NLBs. We present a new depth 3 protocol that extends the known region of distillable NLBs. We give examples of NLBs for which each of Forster et al.'s, Allcock et al.'s, and our protocol performs best. The new understanding we develop is that there is no single optimal protocol for NLB distillation. The choice of which protocol to use depends on the noise parameters for the NLB.

We consider quantum key distribution in the device-independent scenario, i.e., where the legitimate parties do not know (or trust) the exact specification of their apparatus. We show how secure key distribution can be realized against the most general attacks by a quantum adversary under the condition that measurements on different subsystems by the honest parties commute.

Two-dimensional crystals of trapped ions are a promising system with which to implement quantum simulations of challenging problems such as spin frustration. Here, we present a design for a surface-electrode elliptical ion trap which produces a 2-D ion crystal and is amenable to microfabrication, which would enable higher simulated coupling rates, as well as interactions based on magnetic forces generated by on-chip currents. Working in an 11 K cryogenic environment, we experimentally verify to within 5% a numerical model of the structure of ion crystals in the trap. We also explore the possibility of implementing quantum simulation using magnetic forces, and calculate J-coupling rates on the order of 10^3 / s for an ion crystal height of 10 microns, using a current of 1 A.

In this paper, we present a loss-tolerant quantum strong coin flipping protocol with bias 0.359. This is an improvement over Berlin etal's protocol [BBBG08] which achieves a bias of 0.4. To achieve this, we extend Berlin et al.'s protocol by adding an encryption step that hides some information to Bob until he confirms that he successfully measured.

We present an operational interpretation of quantum discord based on the quantum state merging protocol. Quantum discord is the markup in the cost of quantum communication in the process of quantum state merging, if one discards relevant prior information. Our interpretation has an intuitive explanation based on the strong subadditivity of von Neumann entropy. We use our result to provide operational interpretations of other quantities like the local purity and quantum deficit. Finally, we discuss in brief some instances where our interpretation is valid in the single copy scenario.

The subject of this paper is a mathematical transition from the Fisher information of classical statistics to the matrix formalism of quantum theory. If the monotonicity is the main requirement, then there are several quantum versions parametrized by a function. In physical applications the minimal is the most popular. There is a one-to-one correspondence between Fisher informations (called also monotone metrics) and abstract covariances. The skew information and the chi-square-divergence are treated here as particular cases.

If entanglement is available, the error-correcting ability of quantum codes can be increased. We show how to optimize the minimum distance of an entanglement-assisted quantum error-correcting (EAQEC) code, obtained by adding ebits to a standard quantum error-correcting code, over different encoding operators. By this encoding optimization procedure, we found several new EAQEC codes, including a family of [[n, 1, n; n-1]] EAQEC codes and code parameters [[7, 1, 5; 2]], [[7, 1, 5; 3]], [[9, 1, 7; 4]], [[9, 1, 7; 5]], which saturate the quantum singleton bound for EAQEC codes. A random search algorithm for the encoding optimization procedure is also proposed.

We present a scheme to improve the noise threshold for the fault-tolerant topological one-way computation with a constant overhead. Certain cluster states of finite size, say star clusters, are constructed with logical qubits through an efficient verification process to achieve high fidelity. Then, the star clusters are connected near-deterministically with verification to form a three-dimensional cluster state to implement the topological one-way computation. The necessary postselection for verification is localized within the star clusters, ensuring the salability of computation. This scheme works with a high error rate $ \sim 1 \% $ and reasonable resources comparable to or less than those for the other fault-tolerant schemes, suggesting potentially a noise threshold higher than $ 5\% $.

Though the theory of quantum error correction is intimately related to the classical coding theory, in particular, one can construct quantum error correction codes (QECCs) from classical codes with the dual containing property, this does not necessarily imply that the computational complexity of decoding QECCs is the same as their classical counterparts. Instead, decoding QECCs can be very much different from decoding classical codes due to the degeneracy property. Intuitively, one expect degeneracy would simplify the decoding since two different errors might not and need not be distinguished in order to correct them. However, we show that general quantum decoding problem is NP-hard regardless of the quantum codes being degenerate or non-degenerate. This finding implies that no considerably fast decoding algorithm exists for the general quantum decoding problems, and suggests the existence of a quantum cryptosystem based on the hardness of decoding QECCs.

Entanglement is the fundamental characteristic of quantum physics. Large experimental efforts are devoted to harness entanglement between various physical systems. In particular, entanglement between light and material systems is interesting due to their prospective roles as "flying" and stationary qubits in future quantum information technologies, such as quantum repeaters and quantum networks. Here we report the first demonstration of entanglement between a photon at telecommunication wavelength and a single collective atomic excitation stored in a crystal. One photon from an energy-time entangled pair is mapped onto a crystal and then released into a well-defined spatial mode after a predetermined storage time. The other photon is at telecommunication wavelength and is sent directly through a 50 m fiber link to an analyzer. Successful transfer of entanglement to the crystal and back is proven by a violation of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) inequality by almost three standard deviations (S=2.64+/-0.23). These results represent an important step towards quantum communication technologies based on solid-state devices. In particular, our resources pave the way for building efficient multiplexed quantum repeaters for long-distance quantum networks.

We present an algorithm that prepares thermal Gibbs states of one dimensional quantum systems on a quantum computer without any memory overhead, and in a time significantly shorter than other known alternatives. Specifically, the time complexity is dominated by the quantity $N^{\|h\|/ T}$, where $N$ is the size of the system, $\|h\|$ is a bound on the operator norm of the local terms of the Hamiltonian (coupling energy), and $T$ is the temperature. Given other results on the complexity of thermalization, this overall scaling is likely optimal. For higher dimensions, our algorithm lowers the known scaling of the time complexity with the dimension of the system by one.

Quantum walks are the quantum-mechanical analog of random walks, in which a quantum `walker' evolves between initial and final states by traversing the edges of a graph, either in discrete steps from node to node or via continuous evolution under the Hamiltonian furnished by the adjacency matrix of the graph. We present a hybrid scheme for universal quantum computation in which a quantum walker takes discrete steps of continuous evolution. This `discontinuous' quantum walk employs perfect quantum state transfer between two nodes of specific subgraphs chosen to implement a universal gate set, thereby ensuring unitary evolution without requiring the introduction of an ancillary coin space. The run time is linear in the number of simulated qubits and gates. The scheme allows multiple runs of the algorithm to be executed almost simultaneously by starting walkers one timestep apart.

If nonlocality is to be inferred from a violation of Bell's inequality, an important assumption is that the measurement settings are freely chosen by the observers, or alternatively, that they are random and uncorrelated with the hypothetical local variables. We study the case where this assumption is weakened, so that measurement settings and local variables can be at least partially correlated. We demonstrate a connection between this type of model and classical communication models, and a connection with models that exploit the detection efficiency loophole. We show that even if Bob enjoys full free will, if Alice lacks a single bit of free will - in the sense that the mutual information between local variables and her measurement setting is one bit - then all correlations obtained from projective measurements on a singlet can be reproduced by local means.

We study positive maps of B(K) into B(H) for finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces K and H. Our main emphasis is on how Choi matrices and estimates of their norms with respect to mapping cones reflect various properties of the maps. Special attention will be given to entanglement properties and k-positive maps, in particular tensor products of 2-positive maps. The latter problem is directly related to the question of n-copy distillability of quantum states, for which we obtain a partial result.

In a recent paper, H. Mueller, A. Peters and S. Chu [A precision measurement of the gravitational redshift by the interference of matter waves, Nature 463, 926-929 (2010)] argued that atom interferometry experiments published a decade ago did in fact measure the gravitational redshift on the quantum clock operating at the very high Compton frequency associated with the rest mass of the Caesium atom. In the present Communication we show that this interpretation is incorrect.

Optical detection of single defect centers in the solid state is a key element of novel quantum technologies. This includes the generation of single photons and quantum information processing. Unfortunately the brightness of such atomic emitters is limited. Therefore we experimentally demonstrate a novel and simple approach that uses off-the-shelf optical elements. The key component is a solid immersion lens made of diamond, the host material for single color centers. We improve the excitation and detection of single emitters by one order of magnitude, as predicted by theory.

We give an universal algorithm for testing the local unitary equivalence of states for multipartite system with arbitrary dimensions.

The reversible transfer of quantum states of light in and out of matter constitutes an important building block for future applications of quantum communication: it allows synchronizing quantum information, and enables one to build quantum repeaters and quantum networks. Much effort has been devoted worldwide over the past years to develop memories suitable for the storage of quantum states. Of central importance to this task is the preservation of entanglement, a quantum mechanical phenomenon whose counter intuitive properties have occupied philosophers, physicists and computer scientists since the early days of quantum physics. Here we report, for the first time, the reversible transfer of photon-photon entanglement into entanglement between a photon and collective atomic excitation in a solid-state device. Towards this end, we employ a thulium-doped lithium niobate waveguide in conjunction with a photon-echo quantum memory protocol, and increase the spectral acceptance from the current maximum of 100 MHz to 5 GHz. The entanglement-preserving nature of our storage device is assessed by comparing the amount of entanglement contained in the detected photon pairs before and after the reversible transfer, showing, within statistical error, a perfect mapping process. Our integrated, broadband quantum memory complements the family of robust, integrated lithium niobate devices. It renders frequency matching of light with matter interfaces in advanced applications of quantum communication trivial and institutes several key properties in the quest to unleash the full potential of quantum communication.

It is well-known that von Neumann entropy is nonmonotonic unlike Shannon entropy (which is monotonically nondecreasing). Consequently, it is difficult to relate the entropies of the subsystems of a given quantum state. In this paper, we show that if we consider quantum secret sharing states arising from a class of monotone span programs, then we can partially recover the monotonicity of entropy for the so-called unauthorized sets. Furthermore, we can show for these quantum states the entropy of the authorized sets is monotonically nonincreasing.

The distance of density operators is conveniently measured in many statistical and information-theoretical applications by $f$-divergences, special cases of which include the relative entropy and R\'enyi's $\alpha$-relative entropies. Here we present a self-contained exposition of the monotonicity properties of the quantum $f$-divergences under stochastic maps that only requires a basic knowledge in matrix analysis. We also analyze the case where a stochastic map preserves the $f$-divergence of two states and show that this implies the invertibility of the stochastic map with respect to the given states for a large class of $f$-divergences that depends on the states. This extends Petz's well-known characterization of the preservation of the relative entropy, and simlarly to that, it might find applications in quantum information theory and statistics.

A promising technique for measuring single electron spins is magnetic resonance force microscopy (MRFM), in which a microcantilever with a permanent magnetic tip is resonantly driven by a single oscillating spin. If the quality factor of the cantilever is high enough, this signal will be amplified over time to the point that it can be detected by optical or other techniques. An important requirement, however, is that this measurement process occur on a time scale short compared to any noise which disturbs the orientation of the measured spin. We describe a model of spin noise for the MRFM system, and show how this noise is transformed to become time-dependent in going to the usual rotating frame. We simplify the description of the cantilever-spin system by approximating the cantilever wavefunction as a Gaussian wavepacket, and show that the resulting approximation closely matches the full quantum behavior. We then examine the problem of detecting the signal for a cantilever with thermal noise and spin with spin noise, deriving a condition for this to be a useful measurement.

The quest for quantum computers is motivated by their potential for solving problems that defy existing, classical, computers. The theory of computational complexity, one of the crown jewels of computer science, provides a rigorous framework for classifying the hardness of problems according to the computational resources, most notably time, needed to solve them. Its extension to quantum computers allows the relative power of quantum computers to be analyzed. This framework identifies families of problems which are likely hard for classical computers (``NP-complete'') and those which are likely hard for quantum computers (``QMA-complete'') by indirect methods. That is, they identify problems of comparable worst-case difficulty without directly determining the individual hardness of any given instance. Statistical mechanical methods can be used to complement this classification by directly extracting information about particular families of instances---typically those that involve optimization---by studying random ensembles of them. These pose unusual and interesting (quantum) statistical mechanical questions and the results shed light on the difficulty of problems for large classes of algorithms as well as providing a window on the contrast between typical and worst case complexity. In these lecture notes we present an introduction to this set of ideas with older work on classical satisfiability and recent work on quantum satisfiability as primary examples. We also touch on the connection of computational hardness with the physical notion of glassiness.

We analyze the optimal measurements accessing classical correlations in arbitrary two-qubit states. Two-qubit states can be transformed into the canonical forms via local unitary operations. For the canonical forms, we investigate the probability distribution of the optimal measurements. The probability distribution of the optimal measurement is found to be centralized in the vicinity of a specific projective measurement, which we call the maximal-correlation-direction measurement (MCDM). We prove that for the states with zero-discord and maximally mixed marginals, the MCDM is the very optimal measurement. Furthermore, we give an upper bound of quantum discord based on the MCDM, and investigate its performance for approximating the quantum discord.

Spin-echo experiments are often said to constitute an instant of anti-thermodynamic behavior in a concrete physical system that violates the second law of thermodynamics. We argue that a proper thermodynamic treatment of the effect should take into account the correlations between the spin and translational degrees of freedom of the molecules. To this end, we construct an entropy functional using Boltzmann macrostates that incorporates both spin and translational degrees of freedom. With this definition there is nothing special in the thermodynamics of spin echoes: dephasing corresponds to Hamiltonian evolution and leaves the entropy unchanged; dissipation increases the entropy. In particular, there is no phase of entropy decrease in the echo. We also discuss the definition of macrostates from the underlying quantum theory and we show that the decay of net magnetization provides a faithful measure of entropy change.

We present a general scheme for treating particle beams, including stationary beams, as many particle systems. This includes the full counting statistics and the requirements of Bose/Fermi symmetry. We treat in detail a model of a source, creating particles in a fixed state, which then evolve under the free time evolution, and we determine the resulting stationary beam in the far field. In comparison to the one-particle picture we obtain a correction from Bose/Fermi statistics, which depends on the emission rate.

Recent proposals using heterostructures of superconducting and either topologically insulating or semiconducting layers have been put forth as possible platforms for topological quantum computation. These systems are predicted to contain Ising anyons and share the feature of having only neutral edge excitations. In this note, we show that these proposals can be combined with the recently proposed ``sack geometry'' for implementation of a phase gate in order to conduct robust universal quantum computation. In addition, we propose a general method for adjusting edge tunneling rates in such systems, which is necessary for the control of interferometric devices. The error rate for the phase gate in neutral Ising systems is parametrically smaller than for a similar geometry in which the edge modes carry charge: it goes as $T^3$ rather than $T$ at low temperatures. At zero temperature, the phase variance becomes constant at long times rather than carrying a logarithmic divergence.

Long decay times were previously observed in samples such as 29Si, C60,Y2O3 by applying multipulse nuclear magnetic resonance sequences to measure decoherence times. They are originated in stimulated echoes caused by the pulse angle distributions predictable for inhomogeneously broadened lines. In the present work, a detailed analysis describing how the stimulated echoes can be exploited as quantum coherence memories is presented. We introduce a method based on field gradients to storage coherences as polarization in a controlled way in homogeneous samples. The possibility to keep a coherent state frozen while another part of the sample is subjected to quantum operations opens new perspectives in the field of quantum information. Upon recovery of the storaged coherences, interactions among the whole system can be turned on. However, in order to perform quantum computation, the knowledge of the true coherence time is necessary. We applied the proposed method to demonstrate under the stimulated echo formalism, the appropriate experimental scheme that enables a quenching of the coherence storage, thus rendering a measurement of the coherence decay time T2.

Remarks on Michael Frayn's play "Copenhagen".

We show how the Minkowskian space-time emerges from a topologically homogeneous causal network, presenting a simple analytical derivation of the Lorentz transformations, with metric as pure event-counting. The derivation holds generally for d=1 space dimension, however, it can be extended to d>1 for special causal networks.

In the framework of simple spin-boson Hamiltonian we study an interplay between dynamic and spectral roots to stochastic-like behavior. The Hamiltonian describes an initial vibrational state coupled to discrete dense spectrum reservoir. The reservoir states are formed by three sequences with rationally independent periodicities typical for vibrational states in many nanosize systems. We show that quantum evolution of the system is determined by a dimensionless parameter which is characteristic number of the reservoir states relevant for the initial vibrational level dynamics. Our semi-quantitative analytic results are confirmed by numerical solution of the equation of motion. We anticipate that predicted in the paper both kinds of stochastic-like behavior (namely, due to spectral mixing and recurrence cycle dynamic mixing) can be observed by femtosecond spectroscopy methods in nanosystems.

We address the quantification of non-Gaussianity of states and operations in continuous-variable systems and its use in quantum information. We start by illustrating in details the properties and the relationships of two recently proposed measures of non-Gaussianity based on the Hilbert-Schmidt (HS) distance and the quantum relative entropy (QRE) between the state under examination and a reference Gaussian state. We then evaluate the non-Gaussianities of several families of non-Gaussian quantum states and show that the two measures have the same basic properties and also share the same qualitative behaviour on most of the examples taken into account. However, we also show that they introduce a different relation of order, i.e. they are not strictly monotone each other. We exploit the non-Gaussianity measures for states in order to introduce a measure of non-Gaussianity for quantum operations, to assess Gaussification and de-Gaussification protocols, and to investigate in details the role played by non-Gaussianity in entanglement distillation protocols. Besides, we exploit the QRE-based non-Gaussianity measure to provide new insight on the extremality of Gaussian states for some entropic quantities such as conditional entropy, mutual information and the Holevo bound. We also deal with parameter estimation and present a theorem connecting the QRE nonG to the quantum Fisher information. Finally, since evaluation of the QRE nonG measure requires the knowledge of the full density matrix, we derive some {\em experimentally friendly} lower bounds to nonG for some class of states and by considering the possibility to perform on the states only certain efficient or inefficient measurements.

We present a modal approach to calculate finite temperature Casimir interactions between two periodically modulated surfaces. The scattering formula is used and the reflection matrices of the patterned surfaces are calculated decomposing the electromagnetic field into the natural modes of the structures. The Casimir force gradient from a deeply etched silicon grating is evaluated using the modal approach and compared to experiment for validation. The Casimir force from a two dimensional periodic structure is computed and deviations from the proximity force approximation examined.

We consider 2D networks composed of nodes initially linked by two-qubit mixed states. In these networks we develop a global error correction scheme that can generate distance-independent entanglement from arbitrary network geometries using rank two states. By using this method and combining it with the concept of percolation we also show that the generation of long distance entanglement is possible with rank three states. Entanglement percolation and global error correction have different advantages depending on the given situation. To reveal the trade-off between them we consider their application on networks containing pure states. In doing so we find a range of pure-state schemes, each of which has applications in particular circumstances: For instance, we can identify a protocol for creating perfect entanglement between two distant nodes. However, this protocol can not generate a singlet between any two nodes. On the other hand, we can also construct schemes for creating entanglement between any nodes, but the corresponding entanglement fidelity is lower.

Recently, the presence of noise has been found to play a key role in assisting the transport of energy and information in complex quantum networks and even in biomolecular systems. Here we propose an experimentally realizable optical network scheme for the demonstration of the basic mechanisms underlying noise-assisted transport. The proposed system consists of a network of coupled quantum optical cavities, injected with a single photon, whose transmission efficiency can be measured. Introducing dephasing in the photon path this system exhibits a characteristic enhancement of the transport efficiency that can be observed with presently available technology.

Quantum computers are appealing for their ability to solve some tasks much faster than their classical counterparts. Their use in quantum chemistry was first proposed in [Aspuru-Guzik et al., Science 309, 1704 (2005)]. It was shown that they, if available, would be able to perform the full configuration interaction (FCI) energy calculations with a polynomial scaling. This is in contrast to conventional computers where FCI scales exponentially. We have developed a code for simulation of quantum computers and implemented our version of the quantum full configuration interaction algorithm. We provide a detailed description of this algorithm and the results of the assessment of its performance on the four lowest lying electronic states of CH2 molecule. This molecule was chosen as a benchmark, since its two lowest lying 1A1 states exhibit a multireference character at the equilibrium geometry. It has been shown that with a suitably chosen initial state of the quantum register, one is able to achieve the probability amplification regime of the iterative phase estimation algorithm even in this case.

I show that observations of quantum nonlocality can be interpreted as purely local phenomena, provided one assumes that the cosmos is a multiverse. Conversely, the observation of quantum nonlocality can be interpreted as observation evidence for a multiverse cosmology, just as observation of the setting of the Sun can be interpreted as evidence for the Earth's rotation.

We propose a group-theoretical approach to the generalized oscillator algebra Ak recently investigated in J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 43 (2010) 115303. The case k > or 0 corresponds to the noncompact group SU(1,1) (as for the harmonic oscillator and the Poeschl-Teller systems) while the case k < 0 is described by the compact group SU(2) (as for the Morse system). We construct the phase operators and the corresponding temporally stable phase eigenstates for Ak in this group-theoretical context. The SU(2) case is exploited for deriving families of mutually unbiased bases used in quantum information. Along this vein, we examine some characteristics of a quadratic discrete Fourier transform in connection with generalized quadratic Gauss sums and generalized Hadamard matrices.

The work by Christandl, K\"onig and Renner [Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 020504 (2009)] provides in particular the possibility of studying unconditional security in the finite-key regime for all discrete-variable protocols. We spell out this bound from their general formalism. Then we apply it to the study of a recently proposed protocol [Laing et al., Phys. Rev. A 82, 012304 (2010)]. This protocol is meaningful when the alignment of Alice's and Bob's reference frames is not monitored and may vary with time. In this scenario, the notion of asymptotic key rate has hardly any operational meaning, because if one waits too long time, the average correlations are smeared out and no security can be inferred. Therefore, finite-key analysis is necessary to find the maximal achievable secret key rate and the corresponding optimal number of signals.

Although quantum mechanics is a very successful theory, its foundations are still a subject of intense debate. One of the main problems is the fact that quantum mechanics is based on abstract mathematical axioms, rather than on physical principles. Quantum information theory has recently provided new ideas from which one could obtain physical axioms constraining the resulting statistics one can obtain in experiments. Information causality and macroscopic locality are two principles recently proposed to solve this problem. However none of them were proven to define the set of correlations one can observe. In this paper, we present an extension of information causality and study its consequences. It is shown that the two above-mentioned principles are inequivalent: if the correlations allowed by Nature were the ones satisfying macroscopic locality, information causality would be violated. This gives more confidence in information causality as a physical principle defining the possible correlation allowed by Nature.

Controlling the interaction of a single quantum system with its environment is a fundamental challenge in quantum science and technology. We dramatically suppress the coupling of a single spin in diamond with the surrounding spin bath by using double-axis dynamical decoupling. The coherence is preserved for arbitrary quantum states, as verified by quantum process tomography. The resulting coherence time enhancement is found to follow a general scaling with the number of decoupling pulses. No limit is observed for the decoupling action up to 136 pulses, for which the coherence time is enhanced more than 25 times compared to spin echo. These results uncover a new regime for experimental quantum science and allow to overcome a major hurdle for implementing quantum information protocols.

We experimentally demonstrate over two orders of magnitude increase in the coherence time of nitrogen vacancy centres in diamond by implementing decoupling techniques. We show that equal pulse spacing decoupling performs just as well as non-periodic Uhrig decoupling and has the additional benefit that it allows us to take advantage of "revivals" in the echo (due to the coherent nature of the bath) to explore the longest coherence times. At short times, we can extend the coherence of particular quantum states out from T_2*=2.7 us out to an effective T_2 > 340 us. For preserving arbitrary states we show the experimental importance of using pulse sequences, that through judicious choice of the phase of the pulses, compensate the imperfections of individual pulses for all input states. At longer times we use these compensated sequences to enhance the echo revivals and show a coherence time of over 1.6 ms in ultra-pure natural abundance 13C diamond.

Here we report the increase of the coherence time T$_2$ of a single electron spin at room temperature by using dynamical decoupling. We show that the Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill (CPMG) pulse sequence can prolong the T$_2$ of a single Nitrogen-Vacancy center in diamond up to 2.44 ms compared to the Hahn echo measurement where T$_2 = 390~\mu$s. Moreover, by performing spin locking experiments we demonstrate that with CPMG the maximum possible $T_2$ is reached. On the other hand, we do not observe strong increase of the coherence time in nanodiamonds, possibly due to the short spin lattice relaxation time $T_1=100~\mu$s (compared to T$_1$ = 5.93 ms in bulk). An application for detecting low magnetic field is demonstrated, where we show that the sensitivity using the CPMG method is improved by about a factor of two compared to the Hahn echo method.

Avoiding the loss of coherence of quantum mechanical states is an important prerequisite for quantum information processing. Dynamical decoupling (DD) is one of the most effective experimental methods for maintaining coherence, especially when one can access only the qubit-system and not its environment (bath). It involves the application of pulses to the system whose net effect is a reversal of the system-environment interaction. In any real system, however, the environment is not static, and therefore the reversal of the system-environment interaction becomes imperfect if the spacing between refocusing pulses becomes comparable to or longer than the correlation time of the environment. The efficiency of the refocusing improves therefore if the spacing between the pulses is reduced. Here, we quantify the efficiency of different DD sequences in preserving different quantum states. We use 13C nuclear spins as qubits and an environment of 1H nuclear spins as the environment, which couples to the qubit via magnetic dipole-dipole couplings. Strong dipole-dipole couplings between the proton spins result in a fluctuating environment with a correlation time of the order of 100 us. Our experimental results show that short delays between the pulses yield better performance if they are compared with the bath correlation time. However, as the pulse spacing becomes shorter than the bath correlation time, an optimum is reached. For even shorter delays, the pulse imperfections dominate over the decoherence losses and cause the quantum state to decay.

We analyze cooling of a nano-mechanical resonator coupled to a dissipative solid state two level system focusing on the regime of high initial temperatures. We derive an effective Fokker-Planck equation for the mechanical mode which accounts for saturation and other non-linear effects and allows us to study the cooling dynamics of the resonator mode for arbitrary occupation numbers. We find a degrading of the cooling rates and eventually a breakdown of cooling at very high initial temperatures and discuss the dependence of these effects on various system parameters. Our results apply to most solid state systems which have been proposed for cooling a mechanical resonator including quantum dots, superconducting qubits and electronic spin qubits.

We present a model as well as experimental results for a surface electrode radio-frequency Paul trap that has a circular electrode geometry well-suited for trapping of single ions and two-dimensional planar ion crystals. The trap design is compatible with microfabrication and offers a simple method by which the height of the trapped ions above the surface may be changed \emph{in situ}. We demonstrate trapping of single and few Sr+ ions over an ion height range of 200-1000 microns for several hours under Doppler laser cooling, and use these to characterize the trap, finding good agreement with our model.

The Feynman integral is one of the most accurate methods for calculating density operator dynamics in open quantum systems. However, the number of time steps that can realistically be used is always limited, therefore one often obtains an approximation of the density operator at a sparse grid of points in time. Instead of relying only on \textit{ad hoc} interpolation methods such as splines to estimate the system density operator in between these points, I propose a method that uses physical information to assist with this interpolation. This method is tested on a physically significant system, on which its use allows important qualitative features of the density operator dynamics to be captured with as little as 2 time steps in the Feynman integral. This method allows for an enormous reduction in the amount of memory and CPU time required for approximating density operator dynamics within a desired accuracy. Since this method does not change the way the Feynman integral itself is calculated, the value of the density operator approximation at the points in time used to discretize the Feynamn integral will be the same whether or not this method is used, but its approximation in between these points in time is considerably improved by this method.

In their comment[1] on our Letter [arXiv:0907.0767], Leggett and Garg claim that they have introduced in their original paper (LG1) a dependence on measurement times. They also claim that Eqs.(HMDR1) and (LG2a) can therefore not be linked in such a way that the arguments of [arXiv:0907.0767] can be transcribed. However, (LG1) distinguishes only three time differences, and all experimental results corresponding to the same time differences are identically labeled and therefore treated as mathematically identical. We therefore cannot agree with the argumentation of Leggett and Garg: except for a change of nomenclature Eqs.(HMDR1) and (LG2a) are the same. A more extensive discussion of this point can be found in [arXiv:0901.2546].

It is known that both quantum and classical cellular automata (CA) exist that are computationally universal in the sense that they can simulate, after appropriate initialization, any quantum or classical computation, respectively. Here we introduce a different notion of universality: a CA is called physically universal if every transformation on any finite region can be (approximately) implemented by the autonomous time evolution of the system after the complement of the region has been initialized in an appropriate way. We pose the question of whether physically universal CAs exist. Such CAs would provide a model of the world where the boundary between a physical system and its controller can be consistently shifted, in analogy to the Heisenberg cut for the quantum measurement problem. We propose to study the thermodynamic cost of computation and control within such a model because implementing a cyclic process on a microsystem may require a non-cyclic process for its controller, whereas implementing a cyclic process on system and controller may require the implementation of a non-cyclic process on a "meta"-controller, and so on. Physically universal CAs avoid this infinite hierarchy of controllers and the cost of implementing cycles on a subsystem can be described by mixing properties of the CA dynamics. We define a physical prior on the CA configurations by applying the dynamics to an initial state where half of the CA is in the maximum entropy state and half of it is in the all-zero state (thus reflecting the fact that life requires non-equilibrium states like the boundary between a hold and a cold reservoir). As opposed to Solomonoff's prior, our prior does not only account for the Kolmogorov complexity but also for the cost of isolating the system during the state preparation if the preparation process is not robust.

Recently quantum-like representation algorithm (QLRA) was introduced by A. Khrennikov [20]--[28] to solve the so-called "inverse Born's rule problem": to construct a representation of probabilistic data by a complex or more general (in particular, hyperbolic) probability amplitude which matches Born's rule or its generalizations. The outcome from QLRA is coupled to the formula of total probability with an additional term corresponding to trigonometric, hyperbolic or hyper-trigonometric interference. The consistency of QLRA for probabilistic data corresponding to trigonometric interference was recently proved [29]. We now complete the proof of the consistency of QLRA to cover hyperbolic interference as well. We will also discuss hyper trigonometric interference. The problem of consistency of QLRA arises, because formally the output of QLRA depends on the order of conditioning. For two observables (e.g., physical or biological) a and b, b|a- and a|b- conditional probabilities produce two representations, say in Hilbert spaces H^{b| a} and H^{a|b} (in this paper over the hyperbolic algebra). We prove that under "natural assumptions" these two representations are unitary equivalent (in the sense of hyperbolic Hilbert space).

The usual formulation of Macrorealism is recast to make this notion fully concurrent with the basic ideas behind classical physics. The assumption of non-invasiveness of measurements is dropped. Instead, it is assumed that the current state of the system defines full initial conditions for its subsequent evolution. An example of a new family of temporal Bell inequalities is derived which can be applied to processes in which the state of the system undergoes arbitrarily many transformations (which was not the case in the original approach). An exponential (in terms of number of operations) violation of this inequality is demonstrated theoretically. Finally it is shown that such inequalities were indirectly tested in a 2005 experiment by the Weinfurter group.

We discuss a general treatment based on the mean field plus random phase approximation (RPA) for the evaluation of subsystem entropies and negativities in ground states of spin systems. The approach leads to a tractable general method, becoming straightforward in translationally invariant arrays. The method is examined in arrays of arbitrary spin with $XYZ$ couplings of general range in a uniform transverse field, where the RPA around both the normal and parity breaking mean field state, together with parity restoration effects, are discussed in detail. In the case of a uniformly connected $XYZ$ array of arbitrary size, the method is shown to provide simple analytic expressions for the entanglement entropy of any global bipartition, as well as for the negativity between any two subsystems, which become exact for large spin. The limit case of a spin $s$ pair is also discussed.

The quantum localization in the quantum Hall regime is revisited using Graphene monolayers with accurate measurements of the longitudinal resistivity as a function of temperature and current. We experimentally show for the first time a cross-over from Efros-Shklovskii Variable Range Hopping (VRH) conduction regime with Coulomb interactions to a Mott VRH regime without interaction. This occurs at Hall plateau transitions for localization lengths larger than the interaction screening length set by the nearby gate. Measurements of the scaling exponents of the conductance peak widths with both temperature and current give the first validation of the Polyakov-Shklovskii scenario that VRH alone is sufficient to describe conductance in the Quantum Hall regime and that the usual assumption of a metallic conduction regime on conductance peaks is unnecessary.

We explore the physical limits of pulsed dynamical decoupling methods for decoherence control as determined by finite timing resources. By focusing on a decohering qubit controlled by arbitrary sequences of ideal instantaneous pulses, we establish non-perturbative quantitative upper bounds to the achievable coherence for specified maximum pulsing rate and spectral bandwidth, and introduce numerically optimized control sequences that saturate the performance bound subject to these constraints. As a byproduct, our analysis rigorously rules out the existence of fault-tolerance thresholds for purely open-loop unitary control of generic open quantum systems.

We develop a rigorous formalism for the description of the evolution of observables of quantum systems of particles in the mean-field scaling limit. The corresponding asymptotics of a solution of the initial-value problem of the dual quantum BBGKY hierarchy is constructed. Moreover, links of the evolution of marginal observables and the evolution of quantum states described in terms of a one-particle marginal density operator are established. Such approach gives the alternative description of the kinetic evolution of quantum many-particle systems to generally accepted approach on basis of kinetic equations.

We stand by our result [H. Mueller et al., Nature 463, 926-929 (2010)]. The comment [P. Wolf et al., Nature 467, E1 (2010)] revisits an interesting issue that has been known for decades, the relationship between test of the universality of free fall and redshift experiments. However, it arrives at its conclusions by applying the laws of physics that are questioned by redshift experiments; this precludes the existence of measurable signals. Since this issue applies to all classical redshift tests as well as atom interferometry redshift tests, these experiments are equivalent in all aspects in question.

We derive analytical expressions for the single mode quantum field state at the individual output ports of a beam splitter when a single-photon Fock state and a coherent state are incident on the input ports. The output states turn out to be a statistical mixture between a displaced Fock state and a coherent state. Consequently we are able to find an analytical expression for the corresponding Wigner function. Because of the generality of our calculations the obtained results are valid for all passive and lossless optical four port devices. We show further how the results can be adapted to the case of the Mach-Zehnder interferometer. In addition we consider the case for which the single-photon Fock state is replaced with a general input state: a coherent input state displaces each general quantum state at the output port of a beam splitter with the displacement parameter being the amplitude of the coherent state.

We prove that there is a constant $c > 0$ depending only on $M \geq 1$ and $\mu \geq 0$ such that $$\int_y^{y+a}{|g(t)| \, dt} \geq \exp (-c/(a\delta))\,, a \in (0,\pi]\,,$$ for every $g$ of the form $$g(t) = \sum_{j=0}^n{a_j e^{i\lambda_jt}}, a_j \in {\Bbb C}, \enskip |a_j| \leq Mj^\mu\,, \enskip |a_0|=1\,, \enskip n \in {\Bbb N} \,,$$ where the exponents $\lambda_j \in {\Bbb C}$ satisfy $$\text{\rm Re}(\lambda_0) = 0\,, \qquad \text{\rm Re}(\lambda_j) \geq j\delta > 0\,, j=1,2,\ldots\,,$$ and for every subinterval $[y,y+a]$ of the real line. Establishing inequalities of this variety is motivated by problems in physics.

We derive the Spin-Statistics Theorem in both relativistic and non-relativistic first-quantized form for local field theories, extending considerably the earlier proofs. Our derivation is based on the representation theories of groups SU$\left(2\right)$ and SL$\left(2,\mathbb{C}\right)$, latter being the universal covering of the Lorentz group. We include theories that have an internal symmetry group. We discuss relation to the standard representations of the Lorentz group and consistency of the non-relativistic limit. We formulate classical Majorana action in $SL\left(2,\mathbb{C}\right)$ and demonstrate that the failure to write it using the Dirac representation is simply a result of inexact notation. We also decouple the Dirac four-spinor representation to separate particle and anti-particle representations and discuss briefly a geometric proof of the $CPT$ theorem. We discuss relation of the theorem to the canonical quantization.

Analytical calculations based on a Landau Level (LL) picture are reported for an interface (with a finite-width Quantum Well (QW)) and for a fully three-dimensional charged quantum electronic system in an external magnetic field. They lead to a sequence of previously unnoticed singular features in global magnetization and magnetic susceptibility that lead to nontrivial corrections to the standard de Haas - van Alphen periods. Additional features due to Zeeman splitting are also reported (such as new energy minima that originate from the interplay of QW, Zeeman and LL Physics) that are possibly useful for the design of quantum devices. A corresponding calculation in a Composite Fermion picture leads to new predictions on magnetic response properties of a fully-interacting electron liquid in a finite-width interface.

A general coherent control scenario to suppress, or accelerate, tunneling of quantum states decaying into a continuum, is investigated. The method is based on deterministic, or stochastic, sequences of unitary pulses that affect the underlying interference phenomena responsible for quantum dynamics, without inducing decoherence, or collapsing the coherent evolution of the system. The influence of control sequences on the ensuing quantum dynamics is analyzed by using perturbation theory to first order in the control pulse fields and compared to dynamical decoupling (DD) protocols and sequences of pulses that collapse the coherent evolution and induce quantum Zeno (QZE) or quantum anti-Zeno effects (AZE). The analysis reveals a subtle interplay between coherent and incoherent phenomena and demonstrating that dynamics analogous to evolution due to QZE or AZE can be generated from stochastic sequences of unitary pulses when averaged over all possible realizations.

The spatial search problem consists in minimizing the number of steps required to find a given site in a network, under the restriction that only oracle queries or translations to neighboring sites are allowed. We propose a quantum algorithm for the spatial search problem on a triangular lattice with N sites and torus-like boundary conditions. The proposed algortithm is a special case of the general framework for abstract search proposed by Ambainis, Kempe and Rivosh [AKR05] (AKR) and Tulsi [Tulsi08], applied to a triangular network. The AKR-Tulsi formalism was employed to show that the time complexity of the quantum search on the triangular lattice is O(sqrt(N logN)).

We consider a uniformly accelerated atom interacting with a vacuum electromagnetic field in the presence of an infinite conducting plane boundary and calculate separately the contributions of vacuum fluctuations and radiation reaction to the atomic energy level shift. We analyze in detail the behavior of the total energy shift in three different regimes of the distance in both the low acceleration and high acceleration limits. Our results show that, in general, an accelerated atom does not behave as if immersed in a thermal bath at the Unruh temperature in terms of the atomic energy level shifts, and the effect of the acceleration on the atomic energy level shifts may become appreciable in certain circumstances. We also examine the effects of the acceleration on the level shifts when the acceleration is of the transition frequency of the atom and we find some features which are different from what obtained in the existing literature.

We show a microscopic derivation of a quantum master equation with counting terms which describes the electron statistics. A localized spin behaves as a probe whose precession angle monitors the net electron current by the magnetic-moment interaction. The probe Hamiltonian is proportional to the current, and is determined self-consistently for a model of a quantum dot. Then it turns out that the quantum master equation for the spin-precession contains the counting terms. As an application, we show the fluctuation theorem for the electron current.

A collapse and revival shape of Rabi oscillations of a single Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) center electron spin has been observed in diamond at room temperature. Because of hyperfine interaction between the host 14N nuclear spin and NV center electron spin, different orientation of the 14N nuclear spin leads to a triplet splitting of the transition between the ground ms=0 and excited states ms=1. Microwave can excite the three transitions equally to induce three independent nutations and the shape of Rabi oscillations is a combination of the three nutations. This result provides an innovative view of electron spin oscillations in diamond.

We report on an integrated photonic transmitter of up to 100 MHz repetition rate, which emits pulses centered at 850 nm with arbitrary amplitude and polarization. The source is suitable for free space quantum key distribution applications. The whole transmitter, with the optical and electronic components integrated, has reduced size and power consumption. In addition, the optoelectronic components forming the transmitter can be space-qualified, making it suitable for satellite and future space missions.

A one-dimensional system of two trapped bosons which interact through a contact potential is studied using the optimized configuration interaction method. The rapid convergence of the method is demonstrated for trapping potentials of convex and non-convex shapes. The energy spectra, as well as natural orbitals and their occupation numbers are determined in function of the inter-boson interaction strength. Entanglement characteristics are discussed in dependence on the shape of the confining potential.

We introduce a novel approach to study a driven qubit-oscillator system in the ultrastrong coupling regime, where the ratio $g/\Omega$ between coupling strength and oscillator frequency approaches unity or goes beyond, and simultaneously for driving strengths much bigger than the qubit energy splitting (extreme driving). Both qubit-oscillator coupling and external driving lead to a dressing of the qubit tunneling matrix element of different nature: the former can be used to suppress selectively certain oscillator modes in the spectrum, while the latter can bring the qubit's dynamics to a standstill at short times (coherent destruction of tunneling) even in the case of ultrastrong coupling.

A strategy to evaluate the distribution of the largest Schmidt eigenvalue for entangled random pure states of bipartite systems is proposed. We point out that the multiple integral defining the sought quantity for a bipartition of sizes N, M is formally identical (upon simple algebraic manipulations) to the one providing the probability density of Landauer conductance in open chaotic cavities supporting N and M electronic channels in the two leads. Known results about the latter can then be straightforwardly employed in the former problem for both systems with broken ({\beta} = 2) and preserved ({\beta} = 1) time reversal symmetry. The analytical results, yielding a continuous but not everywhere analytic distribution, are in excellent agreement with numerical simulations.

This paper is intended to show that a review in the concept of the game theoretical utility, the revised utility to be applied to the definition of the utility of a wave function representing an object subsystem relative to its observer subsystem, both within an isolated system, leads to the emergence of the Max Born's rule as a profit under a von Neumann's good measure game.

We explore the Franck-Condon physics in a single ion confined in a spin-dependent potential, formed by the combination of a Paul trap and a gradient magnetic field. The correlation between electronic and vibrational degrees of freedom called as electron-vibron coupling is induced by a nonzero gradient. The strong electron-vibron coupling could be employed to suppress or even block some quantum vibrational transitions of the trapped ion. This collective phenomenon is known as the Franck-Condon blockade. Furthermore, we propose how to apply the ionic Franck-Condon physics for quantum logic operation, preparation of motional Fock state and sideband cooling.

Achieving coherent population transfer in the solid-state is challenging compared to atomic systems due to closely spaced electronic states and fast decoherence. Here, within an atomistic pseudopotential framework, we theoretically demonstrate the stimulated Raman adiabatic passage for embedded silicon and germanium nanocrystals. The transfer efficiency spectra displays characteristic Fano resonances. By exploiting the Stark effect, we predict that transfer can be switched off with a DC voltage. Furthermore, as the population transfer is highly sensitive to structural variations, with a choice of a sufficiently small two-photon detuning bandwidth, it can be harnessed for addressing individual nanocrystals within an ensemble.

Local unitary invariants of multipartite states fall into families related by the tracing-out of subsystems. In the case of pure qubit systems, there is a family that accounts for about half the total number of invariants and is closely connected to multipartite separability. One way to define this family is to give pure states the structure of an algebra, and define a log function in this algebra. The coefficients of the Taylor expansion of this log function, which are polynomials in the coefficients of the states, are cumulants. When twirled by local unitaries, these yield invariants. The traditional cumulant, which is a function of random variables, vanishes if its arguments belong to two or more independent sets. The equivalent of this in our context is that certain cumulant-invariants vanish when a state is separable.

We present non-linear dynamical features of two-photon double-cavity optical bistability exhibited by a three level ladder system in the mean field limit. The system exhibits a hump like feature in the lower branch of the bistable response, wherein a new region of instability develops. The system displays a range of dynamical features varying from normal stable switching, periodic self-pulsing to a period-doubling route to chaos. The inclusion of two competing cooperative atom-field couplings leads to such rich nonlinear dynamical behavior. We provide a domain map that clearly delineates the various regions of stability that will aid the realization of any desired dynamics. We also present bifurcation diagram and the associated supporting evidence that clearly identifies the period-doubling route to chaos, which occurs at low input light levels.

We show that gauge transformations can be simulated on systems of ultracold atoms. We discuss observables that are invariant under these gauge transformations and compute them using a tensor network ansatz that escapes the phase problem. We determine that the Mott-insulator-to-superfluid critical point is monotonically shifted as the induced magnetic flux increases. This result is stable against the inclusion of a small amount of entanglement in the variational ansatz.

Detailed derivation of the master equation and the corresponding time evolution of the cavity radiation of a coherent beat laser when the atoms are initially prepared in a partial coherent superposition is presented. It turns out that the quantum features and intensity of the cavity radiation are considerably modified by the phase fluctuation arising due to the practical incapability of preparing atoms in the intended coherent superposition. New terms having an opposite sign with the contribution of the driving radiation emerged in the master equation. This can be taken as an indication for a competing effect between the two in the manifestation of the nonclassical features. This, on the other hand, entails that there is a chance for regaining the quantum properties that might have lost due to faulty preparation by engineering the driving mechanism and vice versa. In light of this, quite remarkably, the cavity radiation is shown to exhibit nonclassical features including two-mode squeezing and entanglement when there is no driving and if the atoms are initially prepared in a partial maximum atomic coherence superposition, contrary to earlier predictions for the case of perfect coherence.

We consider various effects that are encountered in matter wave interference experiments with massive nanoparticles. The text-book example of far-field interference at a grating is compared with diffraction into the dark field behind an opaque aperture, commonly designated as Poisson’s spot or the spot of Arago. Our estimates indicate that both phenomena may still be observed in a mass range exceeding present-day experiments by at least two orders of magnitude. They both require, however, the development of sufficiently cold, intense and coherent cluster beams. While the observation of Poisson’s spot offers the advantage of non-dispersiveness and a simple distinction between classical and quantum fringes in the absence of particle wall interactions, van der Waals forces may severely limit the distinguishability between genuine quantum wave diffraction and classically explicable spots already for moderately polarizable objects and diffraction elements as thin as 100 nm.

We examine the problem of stability of persistent currents in a mixture of two Bose gases trapped in an annular potential. We evaluate the critical coupling for metastability in the transition from quasi-one to two-dimensional motion. We also evaluate the critical coupling for metastability in a mixture of two species as function of the population imbalance. The stability of the currents is shown to be sensitive to the deviation from one-dimensional motion.

We present results of a bright entangled photon source operating at 1552 nm via type-II collinear degenerate spontaneous parametric down-conversion in periodically poled KTP crystal. We report a conservative inferred pair generation rate of 44,000/s/mW into collection modes. Minimization of spectral and spatial entanglement was achieved by group velocity matching the pump, signal and idler modes and through properly focusing the pump beam. By utilizing a pair of calcite beam displacers, we are able to overlap photons from adjacent collinear sources to obtain polarization-entanglement visibility of 94.7 +/- 1.1% with accidentals subtracted.

The Aharonov-Bohm effect is understood to demonstrate that the Maxwell fields can act nonlocally in some situations. However it has been suggested from time to time that the AB effect is somehow a consequence of a local classical electromagnetic field phenomenon involving energy that is temporarily stored in the overlap between the external field and the field of which the beam particle is the source. That idea was shown in the past not to work for some models of the source of the external field. Here a more general proof is presented for the magnetic AB effect to show that the overlap energy is always compensated by another contribution to the energy of the magnetic field in such a way that the sum of the two is independent of the external flux. Therefore no such mechanism can underlie the Aharonov-Bohm effect.

The entanglement spectrum, i.e., the full distribution of Schmidt eigenvalues of the reduced density matrix, contains more information than the conventional entanglement entropy and has been studied recently in several many-particle systems. We compute the disorder-averaged entanglement spectrum, in the form of the disorder-averaged moments of the reduced density matrix, for a contiguous block of many spins at the random-singlet quantum critical point in one dimension. The result compares well in the scaling limit with numerical studies on the random XX model and is also expected to describe the (interacting) random Heisenberg model. Our numerical studies on the XX case reveal that the dependence of the entanglement entropy and spectrum on the geometry of the Hilbert space partition is quite different than for conformally invariant critical points.

We study the excitonic dynamics of a driven quantum dot under the influence of a phonon environment, going beyond the weak exciton-phonon coupling approximation. By combining the polaron transform and time-local projection operator techniques we develop a master equation that can be valid over a much larger range of exciton-phonon coupling strengths and temperatures than the standard weak-coupling approach. For the experimentally relevant parameters considered here, we find that the weak-coupling and polaron theories give very similar predictions for low temperatures (below 30 K), while at higher temperatures we begin to see discrepancies between the two. This is due to the fact that, unlike the polaron approach, the weak-coupling theory is incapable of capturing multiphonon effects, while it also does not properly account for phonon-induced renormalisation of the driving frequency. In particular, we find that the weak-coupling theory often overestimates the damping rate when compared to that predicted by the polaron theory. Finally, we extend our theory to include non-Markovian effects and find that, for the parameters considered here, they have little bearing on the excitonic Rabi rotations when plotted as a function of pulse area.

We provide an alternative approach to the decoherence-by-environment paradigm in the field of the quantum measurement process and the appearance of a classical world. In contrast to the decoherence approach we argue that the transition from pure states to mixtures and the appearance of macro objects (and macroscopic properties) can be understood without invoking the measurement-like influence of the environment on the pointer-states of the measuring instrument. We show that every generic many-body system contains within the class of microscopic quantum observables a subalgebra of macro observables, the spectrum of which comprises the macroscopic properties of the many-body system. Our analysis is based (among other things) on two ingenious papers by v.Neumann and v.Kampen.

With the help of a useful mathematical tool, the polar decomposition of closed operators, and a simple observation, i.e. the unique relation between tensor-product states and compact operators, we manage to give a compact and coherent account of the various properties of higher-order-Schmidt-representations.

We propose and solve a simple but very general quantum model of an SU(2) spin interacting with a large external system with N states. The coupling is described by a random hamiltonian in a new general gaussian SU(2)xU(N) random matrix ensemble, that we introduce in this paper. We solve the model in the large N limit, for any value of the spin j and for any choice of the coupling matrix element distributions in the different possible angular momentum channels l (and provided that the internal dynamics of the spin is slow). Besides its mathematical interest as a non-trivial random matrix model, it allows to study and illustrate in a simple framework various phenomena: the decoherence dynamics, the conditions of emergence of the classical phase space for the spin, the properties quantum diffusion in phase space. The large time evolution for the spin is shown to be non-Markovian in general, the Markov property emerging in some specific case for the dynamics and the initial conditions.

We study the asymptotic entanglement of three identical qubits under the action of a Markovian open system dynamics that does not distinguish them. We show that by adding a completely depolarized qubit to a special class of two qubit states, by letting them reach the asymptotic state and by finally eliminating the added qubit, can provide more entanglement than by direct immersion of the two qubits within the same environment.

We consider a discrete-time quantum walk $\Wt$ at time $t$ on \graph\ $\Jk$, which is composed of $\kappa$ half lines with the same origin. Our analysis is based on a reduction of the walk on a half line. The idea plays an important role to analyze the walks on some class of graphs with \textit{symmetric} initial states. In this paper, we introduce a quantum walk with an enlarged basis and show that $\Wt$ can be reduced to the walk on a half line even if the initial state is \textit{asymmetric}. For $\Wt$, we obtain two types of limit theorems. The first one is an asymptotic behavior of $\Wt$ which corresponds to localization. For some conditions, we find that the asymptotic behavior oscillates. The second one is the weak convergence theorem for $\Wt$. On each half line, $\Wt$ converges to a density function like the case of the one-dimensional lattice with a scaling order of $t$. The results contain the cases of quantum walks starting from the general initial state on a half line with the general coin and homogeneous trees with the Grover coin.

We describe new constructions of graphs which exhibit perfect state transfer on continuous-time quantum walks. Our constructions are based on variants of the double cones [BCMS09,ANOPRT10,ANOPRT09] and the Cartesian graph products (which includes the n-cube) [CDDEKL05]. Some of our results include: (1) If $G$ is a graph with perfect state transfer at time $t_{G}$, where $t_{G}\Spec(G) \subseteq \ZZ\pi$, and $H$ is a circulant with odd eigenvalues, their weak product $G \times H$ has perfect state transfer. Also, if $H$ is a regular graph with perfect state transfer at time $t_{H}$ and $G$ is a graph where $t_{H}|V_{H}|\Spec(G) \subseteq 2\ZZ\pi$, their lexicographic product $G[H]$ has perfect state transfer. (2) The double cone $\overline{K}_{2} + G$ on any connected graph $G$, has perfect state transfer if the weights of the cone edges are proportional to the Perron eigenvector of $G$. This generalizes results for double cone on regular graphs studied in [BCMS09,ANOPRT10,ANOPRT09]. (3) For an infinite family $\GG$ of regular graphs, there is a circulant connection so the graph $K_{1}+\GG\circ\GG+K_{1}$ has perfect state transfer. In contrast, no perfect state transfer exists if a complete bipartite connection is used (even in the presence of weights) [ANOPRT09]. We also describe a generalization of the path collapsing argument [CCDFGS03,CDDEKL05], which reduces questions about perfect state transfer to simpler (weighted) multigraphs, for graphs with equitable distance partitions.

We have investigated the dynamics of entanglement between two spin-1/2 qubits that are subject to independent kick and Gaussian pulse type external magnetic fields analytically as well as numerically. Dyson time ordering effect on the dynamics is found to be important for the sequence of kicks. We show that "almost-steady" high entanglement can be created between two initially unentangled qubits by using carefully designed kick or pulse sequences.

In this paper we consider the quantum phase transition in the Ising model in the presence of a transverse field in one, two and three dimensions from a multi-partite entanglement point of view. Using \emph{exact} numerical solutions, we are able to study such systems up to 25 qubits. The Meyer-Wallach measure of global entanglement is used to study the critical behavior of this model. The transition we consider is between a symmetric GHZ-like state to a paramagnetic product-state. We find that global entanglement serves as a good indicator of quantum phase transition with interesting scaling behavior. We use finite-size scaling to extract the critical point as well as some critical exponents for the one and two dimensional models. Our results indicate that such multi-partite measure of global entanglement shows universal features regardless of dimension $d$. Our results also provides evidence that multi-partite entanglement is better suited for the study of quantum phase transitions than the much studied bi-partite measures.

We use two-laser optical pumping on a continuous atomic fountain in order to prepare cold cesium atoms in the same quantum ground state. A first laser excites the F=4 ground state to pump the atoms toward F=3 while a second pi-polarized laser excites the F=3 -> F'=3 transition of the D2 line to produce Zeeman pumping toward m=0. To avoid trap states, we implement the first laser in a 2D optical lattice geometry, thereby creating polarization gradients. This configuration has the advantage of simultaneously producing Sisyphus cooling when the optical lattice laser is tuned between the F=4 -> F'=4 and F=4 -> F'=5 transitions of the D2 line, which is important to remove the heat produced by optical pumping. Detuning the frequency of the second pi-polarized laser reveals the action of a new mechanism improving both laser cooling and state preparation efficiency. A physical interpretation of this mechanism is discussed.

Through a simple and exact analytical derivation, we show that for a particle on a lattice, there is a one-to-one correspondence between the spectra in the presence of an attractive potential $\hat{V}$ and its repulsive counterpart $-\hat{V}$. For a Hermitian potential, this result implies that the number of localized states is the same in both, attractive and repulsive, cases although these states occur above (below) the band-continnum for the repulsive (attractive) case. For a $\mP\mT$-symmetric potential that is odd under parity, our result implies that in the $\mP\mT$-unbroken phase, the energy eigenvalues are symmetric around zero, and that the corresponding eigenfunctions are closely related to each other.

We show how the momentum distribution of gaseous Bose-Einstein condensates can be shaped by applying a sequence of standing--wave laser pulses. We present a theory of the effect of such a pulse sequence on the condensate wave function in momentum space. We generalize the previous result to the case of N pulses of arbitrary intensity separated by arbitrary intervals and show how these parameters can be engineered to produce a desired final momentum distribution. We find that several momentum distributions, important in atom interferometry applications, can be engineered with high fidelity with two or three pulses.

Two proof-of-principle experiments towards T1-limited magnetic resonance imaging with NV centers in diamond are demonstrated. First, a large number of Rabi oscillations is measured and it is demonstrated that the hyperfine interaction due to the NV's 14N can be extracted from the beating oscillations. Second, the Rabi beats under V-type microwave excitation of the three hyperfine manifolds is studied experimentally and described theoretically.

We study the single particle dynamics of a mobile non-Abelian anyon hopping around many pinned anyons on a surface. The dynamics is modelled by a discrete time quantum walk and the spatial degree of freedom of the mobile anyon becomes entangled with the fusion degrees of freedom of the collective system. Each quantum trajectory makes a closed braid on the world lines of the particles establishing a direct connection between statistical dynamics and quantum link invariants. We find that asymptotically a mobile Ising anyon becomes so entangled with its environment that its statistical dynamics reduces to a classical random walk with linear dispersion in contrast to particles with Abelian statistics which have quadratic dispersion.

We present an efficient arbitrary polarization qubit transmission scheme against channel noise by utilizing frequency degree of freedom, which is more stable in transmission surroundings. The information of quantum state is encoded in frequency state during the transmission and transferred to polarization state later. Both the fidelity of quantum state transmitted and the success probability of this scheme are 1 in principle.

Master equations govern the time evolution of a quantum system interacting with an environment, and may be written in a variety of forms. Markovian master equations, in particular, can be cast in the well-known Lindblad form. Any time-local master equation, Markovian or non-Markovian, may in fact also be written in Lindblad-like form. A diagonalisation procedure results in a unique, and in this sense canonical, representation of the equation. This representation may be used to fully characterize the non-Markovianity of the time evolution. Recently, several different measures of non-Markovianity have been presented. Their common underlying definition of non-Markovianity is whether negative decoherence rates may appear in the Lindblad-like form of the master equation. We therefore propose to use the negative decoherence rates themselves, as they appear in the unique canonical form of the master equation, as a primary measure to more completely characterize non-Markovianity. The advantages of this are especially apparent when many decoherence channels are present.

In the present paper we investigate the set $\Sigma_J$ of all $J$-self-adjoint extensions of a symmetric operator $S$ with deficiency indices $<2,2>$ which commutes with a non-trivial fundamental symmetry $J$ of a Krein space $(\mathfrak{H}, [\cdot,\cdot])$, SJ=JS. Our aim is to describe different types of $J$-self-adjoint extensions of $S$. One of our main results is the equivalence between the presence of $J$-self-adjoint extensions of $S$ with empty resolvent set and the commutation of $S$ with a Clifford algebra ${\mathcal C}l_2(J,R)$, where $R$ is an additional fundamental symmetry with $JR=-RJ$. This enables one to construct the collection of operators $C_{\chi,\omega}$ realizing the property of stable $C$-symmetry for extensions $A\in\Sigma_J$ directly in terms of ${\mathcal C}l_2(J,R)$ and to parameterize the corresponding subset of extensions with stable $C$-symmetry. Such a situation occurs naturally in many applications, here we discuss the case of an indefinite Sturm-Liouville operator on the real line and a one dimensional Dirac operator with point interaction.

We have measured the isotope shift of the narrow quadrupole-allowed 5 2S1/2 - 4 2D5/2 transition in 86Sr+ relative to the most abundant isotope 88Sr+. This was accomplished using high-resolution laser spectroscopy of individual trapped ions, and the measured shift is Delta-nu_meas^(88,86) = 570.281(4) MHz. We have also tested a recently developed and successful method for ab-initio calculation of isotope shifts in alkali-like atomic systems against this measurement, and our initial result of Delta-nu_calc^(88,86) = 457(28) MHz is also presented. To our knowledge, this is the first high precision measurement and calculation of that isotope shift. While the measurement and the calculation are in broad agreement, there is a clear discrepancy between them, and we believe that the specific mass shift was underestimated in our calculation. Our measurement provides a stringent test for further refinements of theoretical isotope shift calculation methods for atomic systems with a single valence electron.

The basic principles of classical and semi-classical theories of molecular optical activity are discussed. These theories are valid for dilute solutions of optically active organic molecules. It is shown that all phenomena known in the classical theory of molecular optical activity can be described with the use of one pseudo-scalar which is a uniform function of the incident light frequency $\omega$. The relation between optical rotation and circular dichroism is derived from the basic Kramers-Kronig relations. In our discussion of the general theory of molecular optical activity we introduce the tensor of molecular optical activity. It is shown that to evaluate the optical rotation and circular dichroism at arbitrary frequencies one needs to know only nine (3 + 6) molecular tensors. The quantum (or semi-classical) theory of molecular optical activity is also briefly discussed. We also raise the possibility of measuring the optical rotation and circular dichroism at wavelengths which correspond to the vacuum ultraviolet region, i.e. for $\lambda \le 150$ $nm$.

The correct form of the Schmidt decomposition of the stationary wave functions for a system of two interacting particles trapped in a two-dimensional harmonic potential is given

Oligomers of the organic semiconductor PTCDA are studied by means of helium nanodroplet isolation (HENDI) spectroscopy. In contrast to the monomer absorption spectrum, which exhibits clearly separated, very sharp absorption lines, it is found that the oligomer spectrum consists of three main peaks having an apparent width orders of magnitude larger than the width of the monomer lines. Using a simple theoretical model for the oligomer, in which a Frenkel exciton couples to internal vibrational modes of the monomers, these experimental findings are nicely reproduced. The three peaks present in the oligomer spectrum can already be obtained taking only one effective vibrational mode of the PTCDA molecule into account. The inclusion of more vibrational modes leads to quasi continuous spectra, resembling the broad oligomer spectra.

We solve analytically the Schr\"odinger equation for the N-dimensional inverse square potential in quantum mechanics with a minimal length in terms of Heun's functions. We apply our results to the problem of a dipole in a cosmic string background. We find that a bound state exists only if the angle between the dipole moment and the string is larger than {\pi}/4. We compare our results with recent conflicting conclusions in the literature. The minimal length may be interpreted as a radius of the cosmic string.

A momentum representation treatment of the hydrogen atom problem with a generalized uncertainty relation,which leads to a minimal length ({\Delta}X_{i})_{min}=ℏ√(3{\beta}+{\beta}′), is presented. We show that the distance squared operator can be factorized in the case {\beta}′=2{\beta}. We analytically solve the s-wave bound-state equation. The leading correction to the energy spectrum caused by the minimal length depends on √{\beta}. An upper bound for the minimal length is found to be about 10⁻⁹ fm.

Based on the stochastic theory developed by Kubo and Anderson, we present an exact result of the decoherence function of a qubit in telegraph-like noises under dynamical decoupling control. We prove that for telegraph-like noises, the decoherence can be suppressed at most to the third order of the time and the periodic Carr-Purcell-Merboom-Gill sequences are the most efficient scheme in protecting the qubit coherence in the short-time limit.

By identifying non-local effects in systems of identical Bosonic qubits through correlations of their commuting observables, we show that entanglement is not necessary to violate certain squeezing inequalities that hold for distinguishable qubits and that spin squeezing may not be necessary to achieve sub-shot noise accuracies in ultra-cold atom interferometry.

We propose to turn two distant resonant cavities effectively into one by coupling them via an optical fiber which is coated with two-level atoms [Franson et al., Phys. Rev. A 70, 062302 (2004)]. The length of the fiber should be such that it supports a small frequency range of standing waves which includes the optical frequency of the cavities. The purpose of the atoms is to measure their evanescent field destructively on a time scale which is long compared to the time it takes a photon to travel from one side to the other. In fact, the fiber should provide an additional reservoir for one common cavity field mode but not for the other. If the corresponding decay rate is sufficiently large, this mode decouples effectively from the system dynamics due to overdamping of its population.

In practical quantum key distribution (QKD) system, the state preparation and measurement are imperfect comparing with the ideal BB84 protocol, which are always state-dependent in practical realizations. If the state-dependent imperfections can not be regarded as an unitary transformation, it should not be considered as part of quantum channel noise introduced by the eavesdropper, the commonly used secret key rate formula GLLP can not be applied correspondingly. In this paper, the unconditional security of quantum key distribution with state-dependent imperfection has been analyzed by estimating the upper bound of the phase error rate about the quantum channel.

We discuss the coupler system of two nonlinear oscillators excited by an external coherent field prepared in a maximally entangled state (Bell-like state). We show that as a result of the coupler interaction of the system with external broadband squeezed vacuum bath, entanglement decay dynamics can be considerably affected. Besides the phenomena of sudden entanglement death and its rebirth, a shortening (or lengthening) of the total disentanglement time {\tau}D can be observed, depending on the squeezing parameters. Moreover, on the example of one of the reborn entanglement cases it is shown that by changing the values of these parameters the maximal values of the negativity for the 3 \otimes 2 system discussed can be tailored.

We show that stochastic phase-space methods within the truncated Wigner approximation can be used to solve non-equilibrium dynamics of bosonic atoms in 1d traps. We consider systems both with and without an optical lattice and address different approximations in stochastic synthesization of quantum statistical correlations of the initial atomic field operator. We also present a numerically efficient projection method for analyzing correlation functions of the simulation results. Physical examples demonstrate non-equilibrium quantum dynamics of solitons and atom number squeezing in optical lattices in which case we, e.g., numerically track the soliton coordinates and calculate quantum mechanical expectation values and uncertainties for the position of the soliton.

We analyze the simultaneous time-optimal control of two-spin systems. The two non coupled spins which differ in the value of their chemical offsets are controlled by the same magnetic fields. Using an appropriate rotating frame, we restrict the study to the case of opposite shifts. We then show that the optimal solution of the inversion problem in a rotating frame is composed of a pulse sequence of maximum intensity and is similar to the optimal solution for inverting only one spin by using a non-resonant control field in the laboratory frame. An example is implemented experimentally using techniques of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance.

We predict the existence of exchange broadening of optical lineshapes in disordered molecular aggregates and a nonuniversal disorder scaling of the localization characteristics of the collective electronic excitations (excitons). These phenomena occur for heavy-tailed L\'evy disorder distributions with divergent second moments - distributions that play a role in many branches of physics. Our results sharply contrast with aggregate models commonly analyzed, where the second moment is finite. They bear a relevance for other types of collective excitations as well.

Given a pure state vector |x> and a density matrix rho, the function p(x|rho)=<x|rho|x> defines a probability density on the space of pure states parameterised by density matrices. The associated Fisher-Rao information measure is used to define a unitary invariant Riemannian metric on the space of density matrices. An alternative derivation of the metric, based on square-root density matrices and trace norms, is provided. This is applied to the problem of quantum-state estimation. In the simplest case of unitary parameter estimation, new higher-order corrections to the uncertainty relations, applicable to general mixed states, are derived.

In relativistic quantum mechanics wave functions of particles satisfy field equations that have initial data on a space--like hypersurface. We propose a dual field theory of ``wavicles'' that have their initial data on a time--like worldline. Propagation of such fields is superluminal, even though the Hilbert space of the solutions carries a unitary representation of the Poincare group of mass zero. We call the objects described by these field equations ``Kairons''. The paper builds the field equations in a general relativistic framework, allowing for a torsion. Kairon fields are section of a vector bundle over space-time. The bundle has infinite--dimensional fibres.

We find analytically an approximate Bloch-Messiah reduction of a noncollinear parametric amplifier pumped with a focused monochromatic beam. We consider type I phase matching. The results are obtained using a perturbative expansion and scaled to high gain regime. They allow a straightforward maximization of the signal gain and minimization of the parametric fluorescence noise. We find fundamental mode of the amplifier which is an elliptic Gaussian defining optimal seed beam shape. We conclude that the output of the amplifier should be stripped of higher order modes, which are approximately Hermite-Gaussian beams. Alternatively, the pump waist can be adjusted such that the amount of noise produced in the higher order modes is minimized.

We describe the "Feynman diagram" approach to nonrelativistic quantum mechanics on R^n, with magnetic and potential terms. In particular, for each classical path \gamma connecting points q_0 and q_1 in time t, we define a formal power series V_\gamma(t,q_0,q_1) in \hbar, given combinatorially by a sum of diagrams that each represent finite-dimensional convergent integrals. We prove that exp(V_\gamma) satisfies Schr\"odinger's equation, and explain in what sense the t\to 0 limit approaches the \delta distribution. As such, our construction gives explicitly the full \hbar\to 0 asymptotics of the fundamental solution to Schr\"odinger's equation in terms of solutions to the corresponding classical system. These results justify the heuristic expansion of Feynman's path integral in diagrams.

Given an arbitrary Lagrangian function on \RR^d and a choice of classical path, one can try to define Feynman's path integral supported near the classical path as a formal power series parameterized by "Feynman diagrams," although these diagrams may diverge. We compute this expansion and show that it is (formally, if there are ultraviolet divergences) invariant under volume-preserving changes of coordinates. We prove that if the ultraviolet divergences cancel at each order, then our formal path integral satisfies a "Fubini theorem" expressing the standard composition law for the time evolution operator in quantum mechanics. Moreover, we show that when the Lagrangian is inhomogeneous-quadratic in velocity such that its homogeneous-quadratic part is given by a matrix with constant determinant, then the divergences cancel at each order. Thus, by "cutting and pasting" and choosing volume-compatible local coordinates, our construction defines a Feynman-diagrammatic "formal path integral" for the nonrelativistic quantum mechanics of a charged particle moving in a Riemannian manifold with an external electromagnetic field.

We study the entanglement spectra of bilayer quantum Hall systems at total filling factor nu=1. In the interlayer-coherent phase at layer separations smaller than a critical value, the entanglement spectra show a striking similarity to the energy spectra of the corresponding monolayer systems around half filling. The transition to the incoherent phase can be followed in terms of low-lying entanglement levels, constituting a link between the entanglement spectrum and a quantum phase transition. Finally, we describe the relation between those two types of spectra in terms of effective thermodynamic quantities.

There are many formalisms to describe quantum decoherence. However, many of them give a non general and ad hoc definition of "pointer basis" or "moving preferred basis", and this fact is a problem for the decoherence program. In this paper we will consider quantum systems under a general theoretical framework for decoherence and present a tentative very general definition of the moving preferred basis, in the "random" case, In addition, this definition and another one for a non-random case, are implemented in a well known model. The obtained decoherence and the relaxation times are defined and compared within this model.

We systematically describe and classify 1-dimensional Schr\"odinger equations that can be solved in terms of hypergeometric type functions. Beside the well-known families, we explicitly describe 2 new classes of exactly solvable Schr\"odinger equations that can be reduced to the Hermite equation.

The understanding of disordered quantum systems is still far from being complete, despite many decades of research on a variety of physical systems. In this review we discuss how Bose-Einstein condensates of ultracold atoms in disordered potentials have opened a new window for studying fundamental phenomena related to disorder. In particular, we point our attention to recent experimental studies on Anderson localization and on the interplay of disorder and weak interactions. These realize a very promising starting point for a deeper understanding of the complex behaviour of interacting, disordered systems.

This paper proposes a robust control method based on sliding mode design for two-level quantum systems with bounded uncertainties. An eigenstate of the two-level quantum system is identified as a sliding mode. The objective is to design a control law to steer the system's state into the sliding mode domain and then maintain it in that domain when bounded uncertainties exist in the system Hamiltonian. We propose a controller design method using the Lyapunov methodology and periodic projective measurements. In particular, we give conditions for designing such a control law, which can guarantee the desired robustness in the presence of the uncertainties. The sliding mode control method has potential applications to quantum information processing with uncertainties.

We propose a phase-space Wigner harmonics entropy measure for many-body quantum dynamical complexity. This measure, which reduces to the well known measure of complexity in classical systems and which is valid for both pure and mixed states in single-particle and many-body systems, takes into account the combined role of chaos and entanglement in the realm of quantum mechanics. The effectiveness of the measure is illustrated in the example of the Ising chain in a homogeneous tilted magnetic field. We provide numerical evidence that the multipartite entanglement generation leads to a linear increase of entropy until saturation in both integrable and chaotic regimes, so that in both cases the number of harmonics of the Wigner function grows exponentially with time. The entropy growth rate can be used to detect quantum phase transitions. The proposed entropy measure can also distinguish between integrable and chaotic many-body dynamics by means of the size of long term fluctuations which become smaller when quantum chaos sets in.

We use the extended Lifshitz theory to study the behavior of the Casimir forces between finite-thickness functional slabs. We first study the interaction between a semi-infinite Drude metal and a finite-thickness magnetic slab with or without substrate. For no substrate, the large distance $d$ dependence of the force is repulsive and goes as $1/d^5$; for the Drude metal substrate, a stable equilibrium point appears at an intermediate distance which can be tuned by the thickness of the slab. We then study the interaction between two identical chiral metamaterial slabs with and without substrate. For no substrate, the finite thickness of the slabs $D$ does not influence significantly the repulsive character of the force at short distances, while the attractive character at large distances becomes weaker and behaves as $1/d^6$; for the Drude metal substrate, the finite thickness of the slabs $D$ does not influence the repulsive force too much at short distances until $D=0.05\lambda_0$.

By harnessing aspects of quantum mechanics, communication and information processing could be radically transformed. Promising forms of quantum information technology include optical quantum cryptographic systems and computing using photons for quantum logic operations. As with current information processing systems, some form of memory will be required. Quantum repeaters, which are required for long distance quantum key distribution, require optical memory as do deterministic logic gates for optical quantum computing. In this paper we present results from a coherent optical memory based on warm rubidium vapour and show 87% efficient recall of light pulses, the highest efficiency measured to date for any coherent optical memory. We also show storage recall of up to 20 pulses from our system. These results show that simple warm atomic vapour systems have clear potential as a platform for quantum memory.

The teleportation of an unknown polarization state of one of the photons in a system of identical particles has been considered. It has been shown that spatial degrees of freedom, which are various directions of the momentum of three photons, are of significant importance for teleportation in the system of identical particles. The inclusion of the spatial degrees of freedom increases the dimension of single-particle state space. In view of this increase, a four-dimensional subspace of two-particle states, which is similar to the state space spanned by the Bell states in a system of two distinguishable qubits, can be separated in the experimental configuration.

We investigate the possibility to form high fidelity atomic Fock states by gradual reduction of a quasi one dimensional trap containing spin polarized fermions or strongly interacting bosons in the Tonk-Girardeau regime. Making the trap shallower and simultaneously squeezing it can lead to the preparation of an ideal atomic Fock state as one approaches either the sudden or the adiabatic limits. Nonetheless, the fidelity of the resulting state is shown to exhibit a non-monotonic behaviour with the time scale in which the trapping potential is changed.

We consider an infinite one dimensional anisotropic XY spin chain with a nearest neighbor time-dependent Heisenberg coupling J(t) between the spins in presence of a time-dependent magnetic field h(t). We discuss a general solution for the system and present an exact solution for particular choice of J and h of practical interest. We investigate the dynamics of entanglement for different degrees of anisotropy of the system and at both zero and finite temperatures. We find that the time evolution of entanglement in the system show non-ergodic and critical behavior at zero and finite temperatures and different degrees of anisotropy. The asymptotic behavior of entanglement at the infinite time limit at zero temperature and constant J and h depends only the parameter lambda=J/h rather than the individual values of J and h for all degrees of anisotropy but changes for nonzero temperature. Furthermore, the asymptotic behavior is very sensitive to the initial values of J and h and for particular choices we may create finite asymptotic entanglement regardless of the final values of J and h. The persistence of quantum effects in the system as it evolves and as the temperature is raised is studied by monitoring the entanglement. We find that the quantum effects dominates within certain regions of the kT-lambda space that vary significantly depending on the degree of the anisotropy of the system. Particularly, the quantum effects in the Ising model case persists in the vicinity of both its critical phase transition point and zero temperature as it evolves in time. Moreover, the interplay between the different system parameters to tune and control the entanglement evolution is explored.

Continuous center-of-mass position measurements performed on an interacting harmonically trapped Bose-gas are considered. Using both semi-analytical mean-field approach and completely quantum numerical technique based on positive P-representation, it is demonstrated that the atomic delocalization due to the measurement back action is smaller for a strongly interacting gas. The numerically calculated second-order correlation functions demonstrate appearance of atomic bunching as a result of the center-of-mass measurement. Though being rather small the bunching is present also for strongly interacting gas which is in contrast with the case of unperturbed gas. The performed analysis allows to speculate that for relatively strong interactions the size of atomic bunches can become smaller than the initial cloud size resulting in a sort of squeezing effect.

Resonance modes in single crystal sapphire ($\alpha$-Al$_2$O$_3$) exhibit extremely high electrical and mechanical Q-factors ($\approx 10^9$ at 4K), which are important characteristics for electromechanical experiments at the quantum limit. We report the first cooldown of a bulk sapphire sample below superfluid liquid helium temperature (1.6K) to as low as 25mK. The electromagnetic properties were characterised at microwave frequencies, and we report the first observation of electromagnetically induced thermal bistability in whispering gallery modes due to the material $T^3$ dependence on thermal conductivity and the ultra-low dielectric loss tangent. We identify "magic temperatures" between 80 to 2100 mK, the lowest ever measured, at which the onset of bistability is suppressed and the frequency-temperature dependence is annulled. These phenomena at low temperatures make sapphire suitable for quantum metrology and ultra-stable clock applications, including the possible realization of the first quantum limited sapphire clock.

It is argued that Bell's nonlocality is a particular case of nonlocality at detection, which appears already in single-particle interference experiments. The unity of nonlocality and local causality is crucial to provide a consistent description of the world.

The Loschmidt echo is a measure of the stability and reversibility of quantum evolution under perturbations of the Hamiltonian. One of the expected and most relevant characteristics of this quantity for chaotic systems is an exponential decay with a perturbation independent decay rate given by the classical Lyapunov exponent. However, a non-uniform decay - instead of the Lyapunov regime - has been reported in several studies. In this work we show that this behavior arises from the so-called non-diagonal contribution of the semiclassical expansion of the LE. Moreover, we analytically compute the decay rate of this contribution. The interplay between the diagonal and non-diagonal contributions is discussed in detail for completely hyperbolic quantum maps.

Generalized PT symmetry provides crucial insight into the sign problem for two classes of models. In the case of quantum statistical models at non-zero chemical potential, the free energy density is directly related to the ground state energy of a non-Hermitian, but generalized PT-symmetric Hamiltonian. There is a corresponding class of PT-symmetric classical statistical mechanics models with non-Hermitian transfer matrices. For both quantum and classical models, the class of models with generalized PT symmetry is precisely the class where the complex weight problem can be reduced to real weights, i.e., a sign problem. The spatial two-point functions of such models can exhibit three different behaviors: exponential decay, oscillatory decay, and periodic behavior. The latter two regions are associated with PT symmetry breaking, where a Hamiltonian or transfer matrix has complex conjugate pairs of eigenvalues. The transition to a spatially modulated phase is associated with PT symmetry breaking of the ground state, and is generically a first-order transition. In the region where PT symmetry is unbroken, the sign problem can always be solved in principle. Moreover, there are models with PT symmetry which can be simulated for all parameter values, including cases where PT symmetry is broken.

We report on the use of a single NV center to probe fluctuating AC magnetic fields. Using engineered currents to induce random changes in the field amplitude and phase, we show that stochastic fluctuations reduce the NV center sensitivity and, in general, make the NV response field-dependent. We also introduce two modalities to determine the field spectral composition, unknown a priori in a practical application. One strategy capitalizes on the generation of AC-field-induced coherence 'revivals', while the other approach uses the time-tagged fluorescence intensity record from successive NV observations to reconstruct the AC field spectral density. These studies are relevant for magnetic sensing in scenarios where the field of interest has a non-trivial, stochastic behavior, such as sensing unpolarized nuclear spin ensembles at low static magnetic fields.

In this paper we review Castagnino's contributions to the foundations of quantum mechanics. First, we recall his work on quantum decoherence in closed systems, and the proposal of a general framework for decoherence from which the phenomenon acquires a conceptually clear meaning. Then, we introduce his contribution to the hard field of the interpretation of quantum mechanics: the modal-Hamiltonian interpretation solves many of the interpretive problems of the theory, and manifests its physical relevance in its application to many traditional models of the practice of physics. In the third part of this work we describe the ontological picture of the quantum world that emerges from the modal-Hamiltonian interpretation, stressing the philosophical step toward a deep understanding of the reference of the theory.

Future quantum technologies rely heavily on the possibility of high-efficiency protection of quantum entanglement against environment-induced decoherence. A recent study showed that an extension of Uhrig's dynamical decoupling (UDD) sequence can lock an arbitrary but known two-qubit entangled state to the Nth order using a sequence of N control pulses [Mukhtar et al., Phys. Rev. A 81, 012331 (2010)]. By nesting three layers of explicitly constructed UDD sequences, here we first consider the protection of unknown two-qubit states as superposition of two known basis states, without making assumptions of the system-environment coupling. It is found that the obtained decoherence suppression can be highly sensitive to the ordering of the three UDD layers and can be remarkably effective with the correct ordering. Our detailed results are useful for general understanding of the nature of controlled quantum dynamics under nested UDD. As an extension of our three-layer UDD, it is finally pointed out that a completely unknown two-qubit state can be protected by nesting four layers of UDD sequences. Our results show that when UDD is applicable (e.g., when environment has a sharp frequency cut-off and when control pulses can be taken as instantaneous pulses), dynamical decoupling using nested UDD sequences is a powerful approach for entanglement protection.

The Floquet theorom and decomposition of operator will be generalized to calculate the non-abelian cyclic geometric phase. The general formula is achieved. Furthermore, the methods is applied to calculate a concret system named LMG.

We show that when photons in NOON states undergo Bloch oscillations, they exhibit a periodic transition between spatially bunched and antibunched states. The period of the bunching/antibunching oscillation is $N$ times faster than the period of the oscillation of the photon density, manifesting the unique coherence properties of NOON states. The transition occurs even when the photons are well separated in space.

We review the fictitious integrable system approach which predicts dynamical tunneling rates from regular states to the chaotic region in systems with a mixed phase space. It is based on the introduction of a fictitious integrable system that resembles the regular dynamics within the regular island. We focus on the direct regular-to-chaotic tunneling process which dominates, if nonlinear resonances within the regular island are not relevant. For quantum maps, billiard systems, and optical microcavities we find excellent agreement with numerical rates for all regular states.

We study the Hamiltonian that is not at first hermitian. Requirement that a measurement shall not change one Hamiltonian eigenstate into another one with a different eigenvalue imposes that an inner product must be defined so as to make the Hamiltonian normal with regard to it. After a long time development with the non-hermitian Hamiltonian, only a subspace of possible states will effectively survive. On this subspace the effect of the anti-hermitian part of the Hamiltonian is suppressed, and the Hamiltonian becomes hermitian. Thus hermiticity emerges automatically, and we have no reason to maintain that at the fundamental level the Hamiltonian should be hermitian. We also point out a possible misestimation of a past state by extrapolating back in time with the hermitian Hamiltonian. It is a seeming past state, not a true one.

This course is aimed at graduate students in physics in mathematics and designed to give a comprehensive introduction to Weyl quantization and semiclassics via Egorov's theorem. Chapter 2 gives a quick overview of classical and quantum mechanics on R^d. Some mathematical preliminaries concerning Hilbert space theory, operator theory and tempered distributions are detailed in Chapters 3-5. Weyl quantization and semiclassics are the content of Chapters 6 and 7. Finally, an application of Weyl calculus to Born-Oppenheimer systems is discussed in Chapter 8.

Conditions are given for the second-order linear differential equation P3 y" + P2 y'- P1 y = 0 to have polynomial solutions, where Pn is a polynomial of degree n. Several application of these results to Schroedinger's equation are discussed. Conditions under which the confluent, biconfluent, and the general Heun equation yield polynomial solutions are explicitly given. Some new classes of exactly solvable differential equation are also discussed. The results of this work are expressed in such way as to allow direct use, without preliminary analysis.

We explore the possibility of using quantum walks on graphs to find structural anomalies, such as extra edges or loops, on a graph. We focus our attention on star graphs, whose edges are like spokes coming out of a central hub. If there are $N$ spokes, we show that a quantum walk can find an extra edge connecting two of the spokes or a spoke with a loop on it in $O(\sqrt{N})$ steps. We initially find that if all of the spokes have loops except one, the walk will not find the spoke without a loop, but this can be fixed if we choose the phase with which the particle is reflected from the vertex without the loop. Consequently, quantum walks can, under some circumstances, be used to find structural anomalies in graphs.

The relation between high-harmonic spectra and the geometry of the molecular orbitals in position and momentum space is investigated. In particular we choose two isoelectronic pairs of homonuclear and heteronuclear molecules, such that the highest occupied molecular orbital of the former exhibit at least one nodal plane. The imprint of such planes is a strong suppression in the harmonic spectra, for particular alignment angles. We are able to identify two distinct types of nodal planes. If the nodal planes are determined by the atomic wavefunctions only, the angle for which the yield is suppressed will remain the same for both types of molecules. In contrast, if they are determined by the linear combination of atomic orbitals at different centers in the molecule, there will be a shift in the angle at which the suppression occurs for the heteronuclear molecules, with regard to their homonuclear counterpart. This shows that, in principle, molecular imaging, which uses the homonuclear molecule as a reference and enables one to observe the wavefunction distortions in its heteronuclear counterpart, is possible.

We report measurements of the optical properties of the 1042 nm transition of negatively-charged Nitrogen-Vacancy (NV) centers in type 1b diamond. The results indicate that the upper level of this transition couples to the m_s=+/-1 sublevels of the {^3}E excited state and is short-lived, with a lifetime <~ 1 ns. The lower level is shown to have a temperature-dependent lifetime of 462(10) ns at 4.4 K and 219(3) ns at 295 K. The light-polarization dependence of 1042 nm absorption confirms that the transition is between orbitals of A_1 and E character. The results shed new light on the NV level structure and optical pumping mechanism.

Parametric two-electron reduced-density-matrix (p-2RDM) methods have enjoyed much success in recent years; the methods have been shown to exhibit accuracies greater than coupled cluster with single and double substitutions (CCSD) for both closed- and open-shell ground-state energies, properties, geometric parameters, and harmonic frequencies. The class of methods is herein discussed within the context of the coupled electron pair approximation (CEPA), and several CEPA-like topological factors are presented for use within the p-2RDM framework. The resulting p-2RDM/n methods can be viewed as a density-based generalization of CEPA/n family that are numerically very similar to traditional CEPA methodologies. We cite the important distinction that the obtained energies represent stationary points, facilitating the efficient evaluation of properties and geometric derivatives. The p-2RDM/n formalism is generalized for an equal treatment of exclusion-principle-violating (EPV) diagrams that occur in the occupied and virtual spaces. One of these general topological factors is shown to be identical to that proposed by Kollmar [C. Kollmar, J. Chem. Phys. 125, 084108 (2006)], derived in an effort to approximately enforce the D, Q, and G conditions for N-representability in his size-extensive density matrix functional.

For the last decade quantum memories have been intensively studied for potential applications to quantum information and communications using atomic and ionic ensembles. With the importance of a multimode storage capability in quantum memories, on-demand control of reversible inhomogeneous broadening of an optical medium has been broadly investigated recently. However, the photon storage time in these researches is still too short to apply for long-distance quantum communications. In this paper, we demonstrate new physics of spin population decay dependent ultralong photon storage method, where spin population decay time is several orders of magnitude longer than the conventional constraint of spin phase decay time.

A Wigner crystal formed with trapped ion can undergo structural phase transition, which is determined only by the mechanical conditions on a classical level. Instead of this classical result, we show that through consideration of quantum and thermal fluctuation, a structural phase transition can be solely driven by change of the system's temperature. We determine a finite-temperature phase diagram for trapped ions using the renormalization group method and the path integral formalism, and propose an experimental scheme to observe the predicted temperature-driven structural phase transition, which is well within the reach of the current ion trap technology.

Results of the numerical Monte-Carlo simulations for the Stark-tuned F\"orster resonance and dipole blockade between 2 to 5 cold rubidium Rydberg atoms in various spatial configurations are presented. Effect of the atom spatial uncertainties on the resonance amplitude and spectrum is investigated. Feasibility to observe coherent Rabi-like population oscillations at a F\"orster resonance between two cold Rydberg atoms is analyzed. Spectra and fidelity of the Rydberg dipole blockade are calculated for various experimental conditions, including nonzero detuning from the F\"orster resonance and finite laser line width. The results are discussed in the context of quantum information processing with Rydberg atoms.

In this paper, the realignment criterion and the RCCN criterion of separability for states in infinite-dimensional bipartite quantum systems are established. Let $H_A$ and $H_B$ be complex Hilbert spaces with $\dim H_A\otimes H_B=+\infty$. Let $\rho$ be a state on $H_A\otimes H_B$ and $\{\delta_k\}$ be the Schmidt coefficients of $\rho$ as a vector in the Hilbert space ${\mathcal C}_2(H_A)\otimes{\mathcal C}_2(H_B)$. We introduce the realignment operation $\rho^R$ and the computable cross norm $\|\rho\|_{\rm CCN}$ of $\rho$ and show that, if $\rho$ is separable, then $\|\rho^{R}\|_{\rm Tr}=\|\rho\|_{\rm CCN}=\sum\limits_k\delta_k\leq1.$ In particular, if $\rho$ is a pure state, then $\rho$ is separable if and only if $\|\rho^{R}\|_{\rm Tr}=\|\rho\|_{\rm CCN}=\sum\limits_k\delta_k=1$.

The paper review and develop the alternative formulation of quantum mechanics known as the phase space quantum mechanics or deformation quantization. It is shown that the quantization naturally arises as an appropriate deformation of the classical Hamiltonian mechanics. More precisely, the deformation of the point-wise product of observables to an appropriate noncommutative $\star$-product and the deformation of the Poisson bracket to an appropriate Lie bracket is the key element in introducing the quantization of classical Hamiltonian systems. The formalism of the phase space quantum mechanics is presented in a very systematic way for the case of Hamiltonian systems without any constrains and for a very wide class of deformations. The considered class of deformations and the corresponding $\star$-products contains all deformations which can be found in the literature devoted to the subject of the phase space quantum mechanics. Fundamental properties of $\star$-products of observables, associated with the considered deformations are presented as well. Moreover, a space of states containing all admissible states is introduced, where the admissible states are appropriate pseudo-probability distributions defined on the phase space. It is proved that the space of states is endowed with a structure of a Hilbert algebra with respect to the $\star$-multiplication. The most important result of the paper shows that developed formalism is more fundamental then the axiomatic ordinary quantum mechanics which appears in the presented approach as the intrinsic element of the general formalism. In addition, examples of a free particle and a simple harmonic oscillator illustrating the formalism of the deformation quantization and its classical limit are given.

The phenomenon of vacuum decay, i.e. electron-positron pair production due to the instability of the quantum electrodynamics vacuum in an external field, is a remarkable prediction of Dirac theory whose experimental observation is still lacking. Here a classic wave optics analogue of vacuum decay, based on light propagation in curved waveguide superlattices, is proposed. Our photonic analogue enables a simple and experimentally-accessible visualization in space of the process of pair production as break up of an initially negative-energy Gaussian wave packet, representing an electron in the Dirac sea, under the influence of an oscillating electric field.

We analyze in detail the heating of bosonic atoms in an optical lattice due to incoherent scattering of light from the lasers forming the lattice. Because atoms scattered into higher bands do not thermalize on the timescale of typical experiments, this process cannot be described by the total energy increase in the system alone (which is determined by single-particle effects). The heating instead involves an important interplay between the atomic physics of the heating process and the many-body physics of the state. We characterize the effects on many-body states for various system parameters, where we observe important differences in the heating for strongly and weakly interacting regimes, as well as a strong dependence on the sign of the laser detuning from the excited atomic state. We compute heating rates and changes to characteristic correlation functions based both on perturbation theory calculations, and a time-dependent calculation of the dissipative many-body dynamics. The latter is made possible for 1D systems by combining time-dependent density matrix renormalization group (t-DMRG) methods with quantum trajectory techniques.

One of the key features of quantum mechanics is the interference of probability amplitudes. The reason for the appearance of interference is mathematically very simple. It is the linear structure of the Hilbert space which is used for the description of quantum systems. In terms of physics we usually talk about the superposition principle valid for individual and composed quantum objects. So, while the source of interference is understandable it leads in fact to many counter-intuitive physical phenomena which puzzle physicists for almost hundred years. The present thesis studies interference in two seemingly disjoint fields of physics. However, both have strong links to quantum information processing and hence are related. In the first part we study the intriguing properties of quantum walks. In the second part we analyze a sophisticated application of wave packet dynamics in atoms and molecules for factorization of integers. The main body of the thesis is based on the original contributions listed separately at the end of the thesis. The more technical aspects and brief summaries of used methods are left for appendices.

We apply the notion of asymptotic iteration method (AIM) to determine eigenvalues of the bosonic Hamiltonians that include a wide class of quantum optical models. We consider solutions of the Hamiltonians, which are even polynomials of the fourth order with the respect to Boson operators. We also demonstrate applicability of the method for obtaining eigenvalues of the simple Lie algebraic structures. Eigenvalues of the multi-boson Hamiltonians have been obtained by transforming in the form of the single boson Hamiltonian in the framework of AIM.

An approximate method is proposed to solve position dependent mass Schr\"odinger equation. The procedure suggested here leads to the solution of the PDM Schr\"odinger equation without transforming the potential function to the mass space or vice verse. The method based on asymptotic Taylor expansion of the function, produces an approximate analytical expression for eigenfunction and numerical results for eigenvalues of the PDM Schr\"odinger equation. The results show that PDM and constant mass Schr\"odinger equations are not isospectral. The calculations are carried out with the aid of a computer system of symbolic or numerical calculation by constructing a simple algorithm.

For decades, light has served as a useful tool in condensed matter physics, yet rarely has light itself been studied in this same framework. The reason that light has been relegated to a tool of condensed matter physics, rather than a subject, is that photons do not interact, and even mediated interactions are weak. Recently, several proposals have been set forth to study strongly correlated macroscopic systems with interacting photons or polaritons in arrays of cavities coupled to atoms or qubits. Here, we demonstrate a mediated photon-photon interaction that results in a non-resonant photon blockade using a single element of these lattices, a cavity coupled to a qubit. The blockade is characterized by measuring the total transmitted power in a fixed measurement bandwidth while varying the energy spectrum of the photons incident on the cavity. A staircase with four distinct steps emerges, which can be understood in analogy with electron transport and the Coulomb blockade in quantum dots. This work differs from previous efforts in that the cavity-qubit excitations retain a photonic nature rather than a hybridization of qubit and photon.

Non-Gaussian states represent a powerful resource for quantum information protocols in the continuous variables regime. Cat states, in particular, have been produced in the motional degree of freedom of trapped ions by controlled displacements dependent on the ionic internal state. An alternative method harnesses the Kerr nonlinearity naturally existent in this kind of system. We present detailed calculations confirming its feasibility for typical experimental conditions. Additionally, this method permits the generation of complex non-Gaussian states with negative Wigner functions. Especially, superpositions of many coherent states are achieved at a fraction of the time necessary to produce the cat state.

The problem of one-dimensional quantum wire along which a moving particle interacts with a linear array of N delta-function potentials is studied. Using a quantum waveguide approach, the transfer matrix is calculated to obtain the transmission probability of the particle. Results for arbitrary N and for specific regular arrays are presented. Some particular symmetries and invariances of the delta-function potential array for the N = 2 case are analyzed in detail. It is shown that perfect transmission can take place in a variety of situations.

The Caldeira-Leggett Hamiltonian (Eq. (1) below) describes the interaction of a discrete harmonic oscillator with a continuous bath of harmonic oscillators. This system is a standard model of dissipation in macroscopic low temperature physics, and has applications to superconductors, quantum computing, and macroscopic quantum tunneling. The similarities between the Caldeira-Leggett model and the linearized Vlasov-Poisson equation are analyzed, and it is shown that the damping in the Caldeira-Leggett model is analogous to that of Landau damping in plasmas [1]. An invertible linear transformation [2, 3] is presented that converts solutions of the Caldeira-Leggett model into solutions of the linearized Vlasov-Poisson system.

We present exact formulas for the entanglement and R\'{e}nyi entropies generated at a quantum point contact (QPC) in terms of the statistics of charge fluctuations, which we illustrate with examples from both equilibrium and non-equilibrium transport. The formulas are also applicable to groundstate entanglement in systems described by non-interacting fermions in any dimension, which in one dimension includes the critical spin-1/2 XX and Ising models where conformal field theory predictions for the entanglement and R\'{e}nyi entropies are reproduced from the full counting statistics. These results may play a crucial role in the experimental detection of many-body entanglement in mesoscopic structures and cold atoms in optical lattices.

With an eye on developing a quantum theory of gravity, many physicists have recently searched for quantum challenges to the equivalence principle of general relativity. However, as historians and philosophers of science are well aware, the principle of equivalence is not so clear. When clarified, we think quantum tests of the equivalence principle won't yield much. The problem is that the clash/not-clash is either already evident or guaranteed not to exist. Nonetheless, this work does help teach us what it means for a theory to be geometric.

We study the non-Abelian statistics of quasiparticles in the Ising-type quantum Hall states which are likely candidates to explain the observed Hall conductivity plateaus in the second Landau level, most notably the one at filling fraction nu=5/2. We complete the program started in Nucl. Phys. B 506, 685 (1997) and show that the degenerate four-quasihole and six-quasihole wavefunctions of the Moore-Read Pfaffian state are orthogonal with equal constant norms in the basis given by conformal blocks in a c=1+1/2 conformal field theory. As a consequence, this proves that the non-Abelian statistics of the excitations in this state are given by the explicit analytic continuation of these wavefunctions. Our proof is based on a plasma analogy derived from the Coulomb gas construction of Ising model correlation functions involving both order and (at most two) disorder operators. We show how this computation also determines the non-Abelian statistics of collections of more than six quasiholes and give an explicit expression for the corresponding conformal block-derived wavefunctions for an arbitrary number of quasiholes. Our method also applies to the anti-Pfaffian wavefunction and to Bonderson-Slingerland hierarchy states constructed over the Moore-Read and anti-Pfaffian states.

We study the excitation dynamics of an inhomogeneously broadened spin ensemble coupled to a single cavity mode. The collective mode coupled most strongly to the cavity acquires an energy shift which may be large enough to prevent its dephasing due to the inhomogeneity in the ensemble, while other collective modes evolve in a non-trivial manner due to the joint effect of the inhomogeneity and the coupling to the cavity. Rather than identifying stationary eigenmodes we define `bare time' modes, for which the dephasing due to inhomogeneities is described exactly as a linear translation. Interaction with the cavity mode `freezes' this translation of the strongly coupled spin mode, while other collective modes experience an additional translational shift as they propagate around the frozen mode. The result is relevant for multi-mode quantum memories where qubits are encoded in different spin waves.

Dynamical systems associated with a q-deformed two dimensional phase space are studied as effective dynamical systems described by ordinary variables. In quantum theory, the momentum operator in such a deformed phase space becomes a difference operator instead of the differential operator. Then, using the path integral representation for such a dynamical system, we derive an effective short-time action, which contains interaction terms even for a free particle with q-deformed phase space. Analysis is also made on the eigenvalue problem for a particle with q-deformed phase space confined in a compact space. Under some boundary conditions of the compact space, there arises fairly different structures from $q=1$ case in the energy spectrum of the particle and in the corresponding eigenspace .

We show how two qubits encoded in the orbital states of two quantum dots can be entangled or disentangled in a controlled way through their interaction with a weak electron current. The transmission/reflection spectrum of each scattered electron, acting as an entanglement mediator between the dots, shows a signature of the dot-dot entangled state. Strikingly, while few scattered carriers produce decoherence of the whole two-dots system, a larger number of electrons injected from one lead with proper energy is able to recover its quantum coherence. Our numerical simulations are based on a real-space solution of the three-particle Schroedinger equation with open boundaries. The computed transmission amplitudes are inserted in the analytical expression of the system density matrix in order to evaluate the entanglement.

We investigate the entanglement and nonlocality properties of one- and two-mode combination squeezed vacuum state (OTCSS, with two-parameter lamda and gamma) by analyzing the logarithmic negativity and the Bell's inequality. It is found that this state exhibits larger entanglement than that of the usual two-mode squeezed vacuum state (TSVS), and that in a certain regime of lamda, the violation of Bell's inequality becomes more obvious, which indicates that the nonlocality of OTCSS can be stronger than that of TSVS. As an application of OTCSS, the quantum teleportaion is examined, which shows that there is a region spanned by lamda and gamma in which the fidelity of OTCSS channel is larger than that of TSVS.

{\small We investigate nonclassical properties of the field states generated by subtracting any number photon from the squeezed thermal state (STS). It is found that the normalization factor of photon-subtracted STS (PSSTS) is a Legendre polynomial of squeezing parameter }${\small r}${\small \ and average photon number }$\bar{n}$ {\small of thermal state. Expressions of several quasi-probability distributions of PSSTS are derived analytically. Furthermore, the nonclassicality is discussed in terms of the negativity of Wigner function (WF). It is shown that the WF of single PSSTS always has negative values if }$\bar{n}<\sinh^{2}r${\small \ at the phase space center. The decoherence effect on PSSTS is then included by analytically deriving the time evolution of WF. The results show that the WF of single PSSTS has negative value if }$2\kappa t<\ln\{1-(2\bar{n}+1)(\bar{n}-\sinh^{2}% r)${\small }$[(2\mathfrak{N}+1)(\bar{n}\cosh2r+\sinh^{2}r)]\}${\small, which is dependent not only on average number }$\mathfrak{N}${\small \ of environment, but also on }$\bar{n}$ {\small and }$r${\small . }

The problems associated with practical implementation of the scheme proposed for preparation of arbitrary states of polarization ququarts based on biphotons are discussed. The influence of frequency dispersion effects are considered, and the necessity of group velocities dispersion compensation in the frequency non-degenerate case even for continuous pumping is demonstrated. A method for this compensation is proposed and implemented experimentally. Physical restrictions on the quality of prepared two-photon states are revealed.

In a recent work, Y.D. Chong et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 105}, 053901 (2010)] proposed the idea of a coherent perfect absorber (CPA) as the time-reversed counterpart of a laser, in which a purely incoming radiation pattern is completely absorbed by a lossy medium. The optical medium that realizes CPA is obtained by reversing the gain with absorption, and thus it generally differs from the lasing medium. Here it is shown that a laser with an optical medium that satisfies the parity-time $(\mathcal{PT})$ symmetry condition $\epsilon(-\mathbf{r})=\epsilon^*(\mathbf{r})$ for the dielectric constant behaves simultaneously as a laser oscillator (i.e. it can emit outgoing coherent waves) and as a CPA (i.e. it can fully absorb incoming coherent waves with appropriate amplitudes and phases). Such a device can be thus referred to as a $\mathcal{PT}$-symmetric CPA-laser. The general amplification/absorption features of the $\mathcal{PT}$ CPA-laser below lasing threshold driven by two fields are determined.

Light propagation in distributed feedback optical structures with gain/loss regions is shown to provide an accessible laboratory tool to visualize in optics the spectral properties of the one-dimensional Dirac equation with non-Hermitian interactions. Spectral singularities and PT symmetry breaking of the Dirac Hamiltonian are shown to correspond to simple observable physical quantities and related to well-known physical phenomena like resonance narrowing and laser oscillation.

Reflectionless defects in Hermitian tight-binding lattices, synthesized by the intertwining operator technique of supersymmetric quantum mechanics, are generally not invisible and time-of-flight measurements could reveal the existence of the defects. Here it is shown that, in a certain class of non-Hermitian tight-binding lattices with complex hopping amplitudes, defects in the lattice can appear fully invisible to an outside observer. The synthesized non-Hermitian lattices with invisible defects possess a real-valued energy spectrum, however they lack of parity-time (PT) symmetry, which does not play any role in the present work.

Entanglement charge is an operational measure to quantify nonlocalities in ensembles consisting of bipartite quantum states. Here we generalize this nonlocality measure to single bipartite quantum states. As an example, we analyze the entanglement charges of some thermal states of two-qubit systems and show how they depend on the temperature and the system parameters in an analytical way.

Quantum eigenstates undergoing cyclic changes acquire a phase factor of geometric origin. This phase, known as the Berry phase, or the geometric phase, has found applications in a wide range of disciplines throughout physics, including atomic and molecular physics, condensed matter physics, optics, and classical dynamics. In this article, the basic theory of the geometric phase is presented along with a number of representative applications. The article begins with an account of the geometric phase for cyclic adiabatic evolutions. An elementary derivation is given along with a worked example for two-state systems. The implications of time-reversal are explained, as is the fundamental connection between the geometric phase and energy level degeneracies. We also discuss methods of experimental observation. A brief account is given of geometric magnetism; this is a Lorenz-like force of geometric origin which appears in the dynamics of slow systems coupled to fast ones. A number of theoretical developments of the geometric phase are presented. These include an informal discussion of fibre bundles, and generalizations of the geometric phase to degenerate eigenstates (the nonabelian case) and to nonadiabatic evolution. There follows an account of applications. Manifestations in classical physics include the Hannay angle and kinematic geometric phases. Applications in optics concern polarization dynamics, including the theory and observation of Pancharatnam's phase. Applications in molecular physics include the molecular Aharonov-Bohm effect and nuclear magnetic resonance studies. In condensed matter physics, we discuss the role of the geometric phase in the theory of the quantum Hall effect.

We compare the quantisation of linear systems of bosons and fermions. After stating the existing facts on bosons, we discuss the pre-quantisation and quantisation of fermions using calculus of fermionic variables. We then define a natural connection on the bundle of Hilbert spaces and show that it is projectively flat. This identifies, up to a phase, constructions of the spinor representation under various polarisations. We introduce the concept of metaplectic correction for fermions and show that the bundle of corrected Hilbert spaces is naturally flat. We then show that the parallel transport in the bundle of Hilbert spaces along a geodesic is the rescaled projection or the Bogoliubov transformation provided the geodesic lies within the complement of a cut locus. The decomposition of the bundle of Hilbert spaces when there is a symmetry is also studied.

The ability of fully reconstructing quantum maps is a fundamental task of quantum information, in particular when coupling with the environment and experimental imperfections of devices are taken into account. In this context we carry out a quantum process tomography (QPT) approach for a set of non trace-preserving maps. We introduce an operator $\OO$ to characterize the state dependent probability of success for the process under investigation. We also evaluate the result of approximating the process with a trace-preserving one.

The geometric measure, the logarithmic robustness and The relative entropy of entanglement are proved to be equal for a stabilizer quantum codeword. The entanglement upper and lower bounds are determined with the generators. The entanglement of self-dual CSS codes and Gottesman codes are given. An iterative algorithm is developed in order to determine the exact value of the entanglement.

We consider a generalization of the 2-dimensional (2D) quantum-Hall insulator to a non-compact, non-Abelian gauge group, the Heisenberg-Weyl group. We show that this kind of insulator is actually a layered 3D insulator with nontrivial topology. We further show that nontrivial combinations of quantized transverse conductivities can be engineered with the help of a staggered potential. We investigate the robustness and topological nature of this conductivity and connect it to the surface modes of the system. We also propose a very simple experimental realization with ultracold atoms in 3D confined to a 2D square lattice with the third dimension being mapped to a gauge coordinate.

When a neutral atom moves in a properly designed laser field, its center-of-mass motion may mimic the dynamics of a charged particle in a magnetic field, with the emergence of a Lorentz-like force. In this Colloquium we present the physical principles at the basis of this artificial (synthetic) magnetism and relate the corresponding Aharonov-Bohm phase to the Berry's phase that emerges when the atom follows adiabatically one of its dressed states. We also discuss some manifestations of artificial magnetism for a cold quantum gas, in particular in terms of vortex nucleation. We then generalise our analysis to the simulation of non-Abelian gauge potentials and present some striking consequences, such as the emergence of an effective spin-orbit coupling. We address both the case of bulk gases and discrete systems, where atoms are trapped in an optical lattice.

In this paper we study the evolution operator of a time-dependent Hamiltonian in the three level system. The evolution operator is based on $SU(3)$ and its dimension is $8$, so we obtain three complex Riccati differential equations interacting with one another (which have been obtained by Fujii and Oike) and two real phase equations. This is a canonical form of the evolution operator.

Schr\"{o}dinger (Nature, v.169, p.538(1952)) noted that for each solution of the equations of scalar electrodynamics (the Klein-Gordon-Maxwell electrodynamics) there is a physically equivalent (i.e. coinciding with it up to a gauge transform) solution with a real matter field, despite the widespread belief about charged fields requiring complex representation. Surprisingly, the same result is true for spinor electrodynamics (the Dirac-Maxwell electrodynamics): the Dirac equation for the four complex components of the spinor function can be replaced by a fourth-order equation for one of those components, and this component can be made real by a gauge transform.

In this paper, we investigate the entanglement of multi-partite Grassmannian coherent states (GCSs) described by Grassmann numbers. Choosing an appropriate weight function, we show that it is possible to construct some well-known entangled pure states, consisting of {\bf{GHZ}}, {\bf{W}}, Bell, cluster type and bi-separable states, which are obtained by integrating over tensor product of GCSs. It is shown that for three level systems, the Grassmann creation and annihilation operators $b$ and $b^\dag$ together with $b_{z}$ form a closed deformed algebra, i.e., $SU_{q}(2)$ with $q=e^{\frac{2\pi i}{3}}$, which is useful to construct entangled qutrit-states. The same argument holds for three level squeezed states. Moreover combining the Grassmann and bosonic coherent states we construct maximal entangled super coherent states. Finally a comparison with maximal entangled bosonic coherent states is presented and it is shown that in some cases they have fermionic counterparts which after integration over suitable weight functions are maximally entangled .

By introducing a new entangled state representation, we show that the Laguerre-Gaussian (LG) mode is just the wave function of the common eigenvector of the orbital angular momentum and the total photon number operators of 2-d oscillator, which can be generated by 50:50 beam splitter with the phase difference phi=Pi/2{\phi} between the reflected and transmitted fields. Based on this and using the Weyl ordering invariance under similar transforms, the Wigner representation of LG is directly obtained, which can be considered as the generalized Wigner transform of Hermite Gaussian modes.

When a quantum object -- a particle as we call it in a non-rigorous way -- is described by a multi-branched wave- function, with the corresponding wave-packets occupying separated regions of the time-space, a frequently asked question is whether the quantum object is actually contained in only one of these wave-packets. If the answer is positive, then the other wave-packets are called in literature empty waves. The wave-packet containing the object is called a full wave, and is the only one that would produce a recording in a detector. A question immediately arising is whether the empty waves may also have an observable effect. Different works were dedicated to the elucidation of this question. None of them proved that the hypothesis of full/empty waves is correct - it may be that the Nature is indeed non-deterministic and the quantum object is not confined to one region of the space-time. All the works that proved that the empty waves have an effect, in fact, proved that if there exist full and empty waves, then the latter may have an observable effect. This is also the purpose and the limitation of the present work. What is shown here is that if the hypothesis is true, the empty waves have an influence. An experiment is indicated which reveals this influence. The analysis of the experiment is according to the quantum formalism. This experiment has the advantage of being more intuitive and practically more feasible than a previous proposal also in agreement with the quantum formalism. However, the presently proposed experiment also shows that the quantum theory is not in favor of the above hypothesis.

We present a study of the entanglement properties of Gaussian cluster states, proposed as a universal resource for continuous-variable quantum computing. A central aim is to compare mathematically-idealized cluster states defined using quadrature eigenstates, which have infinite squeezing and cannot exist in nature, with Gaussian approximations which are experimentally accessible. Adopting widely-used definitions, we first review the key concepts, by analysing a process of teleportation along a continuous-variable quantum wire in the language of matrix product states. Next we consider the bipartite entanglement properties of the wire, providing analytic results. We proceed to grid cluster states, which are universal for the qubit case. To extend our analysis of the bipartite entanglement, we adopt the entropic-entanglement width, a specialized entanglement measure introduced recently by Van den Nest M et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 97 150504 (2006), adapting their definition to the continuous-variable context. Finally we add the effects of photonic loss, extending our arguments to mixed states. Cumulatively our results point to key differences in the properties of idealized and Gaussian cluster states. Even modest loss rates are found to strongly limit the amount of entanglement. We discuss the implications for the potential of continuous-variable analogues of measurement-based quantum computation.

We have developed an etching process to fabricate a quantum dot and a nearby single electron transistor as a charge detector in a single layer graphene. The high charge sensitivity of the detector is used to probe Coulomb diamonds as well as excited spectrum in the dot, even in the regime where the current through the quantum dot is too small to be measured by conventional transport means. The graphene based quantum dot and integrated charge sensor serve as an essential building block to form a solid-state qubit in a nuclear-spin-free quantum world.

We study the minimum volume ellipsoid estimator associates to a cloud of points in phase space. Using as a natural measure of uncertainty the symplectic capacity of the covariance ellipsoid we find that classical uncertainties obey relations similar to those found in non-standard quantum mechanics.

Harnessing the existing telecommunications infrastructure to distribute entangled photons would provide a dramatic reduction in the overhead needed to deploy and operate a quantum network. The traditionally empty 1310-nm telecommunications band is uniquely suited for this task. However, an additional resource is required to realize such a network: a switch capable of routing single photons at high speeds, with minimal loss and signal-band noise, and---most importantly---without disturbing the photons' quantum state. These exacting requirements preclude the use of all previous switching technologies. Here we present a switch which fulfills these requirements and characterize its performance at the single photon level; it exhibits a 200-ps switching window, a 120:1 contrast ratio, <1 dB loss, and induces no measurable degradation in the switched photons' entangled-state fidelity (< 0.002). In addition, we demonstrate its utility by successfully demultiplexing a single quantum channel from a dual-channel, time-division-multiplexed entangled photon stream.

We construct a nonrelativistic wave equation for spinning particles in the noncommutative space (in a sense, a $\theta$-modification of the Pauli equation). To this end, we consider the nonrelativistic limit of the $\theta$-modified Dirac equation. To complete the consideration, we present a pseudoclassical model (\`a la Berezin-Marinov) for the corresponding nonrelativistic particle in the noncommutative space. To justify the latter model, we demonstrate that its quantization leads to the $\theta$-modified Pauli equation. We extract $\theta$-modified interaction between a nonrelativistic spin and a magnetic field from such a Pauli equation and construct a $\theta$-modification of the Heisenberg model for two coupled spins placed in an external magnetic field. In the framework of such a model, we calculate the probability transition between two orthogonal EPR (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen) states for a pair of spins in an oscillatory magnetic field and show that some of such transitions, which are forbidden in the commutative space, are possible due to the space noncommutativity. This allows us to estimate an upper bound on the noncommtativity parameter.

Magnetic confinement in graphene has been of recent and growing interest because its potential applications in nanotechnology. In particular, the observation of the so called magnetic edge states in graphene has opened the possibility to deepen into the generation of spin currents and its applications in spintronics. We study the magnetic edge states of quasi-particles arising in graphene monolayers due to an inhomogeneous magnetic field of a magnetic barrier in the formalism of the two-dimensional massless Dirac equation. We also show how the solutions of such states in each of both triangular sublattices of the graphene are related through a supersymmetric transformation in the quantum mechanical sense.

Separate regions in space are generally entangled, even in the vacuum state. It is known that this entanglement can be swapped to separated Unruh-DeWitt detectors, i.e., that the vacuum can serve as a source of entanglement. Here, we demonstrate that, in the presence of curvature, the amount of entanglement that Unruh-DeWitt detectors can extract from the vacuum can be increased.

Efficient electronic structure methods can be built around efficient tensor representations of the wavefunction. Here we describe a general view of tensor factorization for the compact representation of electronic wavefunctions. We use these ideas to construct low-complexity representations of the doubles amplitudes in local second order M{\o}ller-Plesset perturbation theory. We introduce two approximations - the direct orbital specific virtual approximation and the full orbital specific virtual approximation. In these approximations, each occupied orbital is associated with a small set of correlating virtual orbitals. Conceptually, the representation lies between the projected atomic orbital representation in Pulay-Saeb{\o} local correlation theories and pair natural orbital correlation theories. We have tested the orbital specific virtual approximations on a variety of systems and properties including total energies, reaction energies, and potential energy curves. Compared to the Pulay-Saeb{\o} ansatz, we find that these approximations exhibit favourable accuracy and computational times, while yielding smooth potential energy curves.

Many organic molecules with a high nonlinear polarizability have a "Brooker dye" structure, featuring electron accepting or donating groups separated by an unsaturated (methine or polyene) hydrocarbon bridge. These systems have been the topic of much discussion with regard to their structure-property relationships - particularly relationships linking nonlinear response to bond-length alternation. Here, we show that these relationships can be subsumed within the conceptual framework of a Brooker dye color proposed by Platt [J.R. Platt, J. Chem. Phys. 25 80 (1956)]. The key quantities of Platt's model are the Brooker basicity difference and the isoexcitation energy. These concepts provide a spectroscopic definition of the resonant (cyanine) limit, which is independent of other descriptors commonly used (e.g. bond length alternation). We establish a relation ship between the bond length and the Brooker basicity difference, with which we establish a natural origin for bond length alternation coordinates in asymmetrical dyes. We show that for a resonant asymmetric dye, the bond lengths are not equal, but converge to the bond lengths of the parent symmetric dyes on each ring domain and the bridge. We also derive expressions for the dipole observables and the linear and non-linear polarizabilities in terms of the Brooker basicity difference and the isoexcitation energy, and show that well-known expressions for these quantities based on the bond alternation can be derived from these. We illustrate and test the relationships against a quantum chemical data set collected on a complete family of dyes related to the green fluorescent protein (GFP) chromophore motif (a halochromic monomethine oxonol dye). The relationships we derive are applied in an analysis of electroabsorption and second-harmonic generation experiments on different GFP variants.

We show that it is possible to define shape-independent three-dimensional short-range quantum interactions in two parameter form for non-spherical angular momentum channels through double rescaling of potential strength. Unlike the special case of $l=0$, where the zero range limit of the system is renormalizable, the effective ranges diverge for $l /ne 0$ channels, and the system becomes trivial at zero-size limit. It is also shown that the two-parameter representation with finite interaction range is useful in analyzing phase shifts with accuracy and describing resonances in non-spherical scatterings.

In Wiseman et. al. (Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 140402, 2007) the authors proposed a distinction between the nonlocality classes of Bell nonlocality, EPR steering and entanglement based on whether or not an overseer trusts each party in a bipartite scenario where they are asked to demonstrate entanglement. Here we extend that concept to the multipartite case and derive inequalities that progressively test for those classes of nonlocality, with different thresholds for each level. This framework includes the three classes of nonlocality above in special cases and introduces a family of others.

We show that it is impossible to prove that the outcome of a quantum measurement is random.

Very recently a conjecture saying that the so-called structural physical approximations to optimal positive maps (optimal entanglement witnesses) give entanglement breaking (EB) maps (separable states) has been posed [J. K. Korbicz et al., Phys. Rev. A 78, 062105 (2008)]. The main purpose of this contribution is to explore this subject. First, we extend the set of witnesses obeying the conjecture. Then, we ask if structural physical approximations constructed from other than the depolarizing channel maps also lead to some EB maps. We formulate and prove a weaker conjecture stating that for any positive map there exists an entanglement breaking map such that SPA constructed from it is entanglement breaking. Finally, we ask similar questions in the case of continuous variable systems. We provide a simple way of contraction of SPA, and prove that in the case of the transposition map it gives entanglement breaking channel.

In this work, we propose an adder for the 2D NTC architecture, designed to match the architectural constraints of many quantum computing technologies. The chosen architecture allows the layout of logical qubits in two dimensions and the concurrent execution of one- and two-qubit gates with nearest-neighbor interaction only. The proposed adder works in three phases. In the first phase, the first column generates the summation output and the other columns do the carry-lookahead operations. In the second phase, these intermediate values are propagated from column to column, preparing for computation of the final carry for each register position. In the last phase, each column, except the first one, generates the summation output using this column-level carry. The depth and the number of qubits of the proposed adder are $\Theta(\sqrt{n})$ and O(n), respectively. The proposed adder executes faster than the adders designed for the 1D NTC architecture when the length of the input registers $n$ is larger than 58.

We study discrete-time quantum walks on a half line by means of spectral analysis. Cantero et al. [1] showed that the CMV matrix, which gives a recurrence relation for the orthogonal Laurent polynomials on the unit circle [2], expresses the dynamics of the quantum walk. Using the CGMV method introduced by them, the name is taken from their initials, we obtain the spectral measure for the quantum walk. As a corollary, we give another proof for localization of the quantum walk on homogeneous trees shown by Chisaki et al. [3].

Implementing quantum operations as strategic moves in a game dramatically improves the expected dividends of the involved player. We present a game involving two players A and B with different quantum coins, as quantum coin operators, to manipulate the evolution of the discrete-time quantum walk on a line. The game is presented in the form of Parrondo's game such that, the players A and B individually losing the game can develop a strategy to emerge as joint winners by using their coins alternatively, or in combination for each step of the quantum walk evolution. We also present a strategy for player A (B) to have a winning probability more than a player B (A). Significance of the game strategy in information theory and physical applications is also discussed.

We experimentally and theoretically demonstrate the purity (polarization) control of qubits entangled with multiple spins, using induced dephasing in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) setups to simulate repeated quantum measurements. We show that one may steer the qubit ensemble towards a quasi-equilibrium state of certain purity, by choosing suitable time intervals between dephasing operations. These results demonstrate that repeated dephasing at intervals associated with the anti-Zeno regime lead to ensemble purification, whereas those associated with the Zeno regime lead to ensemble mixing.

We apply the optimization algorithm developed by Konnov and Krotov [Automation and Remote Control 60, 1427 (1999)] to quantum control problems. Using a second order construction, we derive a class of monotonically convergent optimization algorithms. We show that for most quantum control problems, the second order contribution can be straightforwardly estimated since optimization is performed over compact sets of candidate states. Generally, quantum control problems can be classified according to the optimization functionals, equations of motion and dependency of the Hamiltonian on the control. For each problem class, we outline the resulting monotonically convergent algorithm. While a second order construction is necessary to ensure monotonic convergence in general, for the 'standard' quantum control problem of a convex final-time functional, linear equations of motion and linear dependency of the Hamiltonian on the field, both first and second order algorithms converge monotonically. We compare convergence behavior and performance of first and second order algorithms for two generic optimization examples.

In this paper the Casimir energy of two parallel plates made by materials of different penetration depth and no medium in between is derived. We study the Casimir force density and derive analytical constraints on the two penetration depths which are sufficient conditions to ensure repulsion. Compared to other methods our approach needs no specific model for dielectric or magnetic material properties and constitutes a complementary analysis.

It is demonstrated that the the statistics for a joint measurement of two conjugate variables in Quantum Mechanics are expressed through an equation identical to the classical one, provided that joint classical probabilities are substituted by Wigner functions and that the interaction between system and detectors is accounted for. This constitutes an extension of Ehrenfest correspondence principle, and it is thereby dubbed strong correspondence principle. Furthermore, it is proved that the detectors provide an additive term to all the cumulants, and that if they are prepared in a Gaussian state they only contribute to the first and second cumulant.

Quantum effects are mainly used for the determination of molecular shapes in molecular biology, but quantum information theory may be a more useful tool to understand the physics of life. Molecular biology assumes that function is explained by structure, the complementary geometries of molecules and weak intermolecular hydrogen bonds. However, both this assumption and its converse are possible if organic molecules and quantum circuits/protocols are considered as hardware and software of living systems that are co-optimized during evolution. In this paper, we try to model DNA replication as a multiparticle entanglement swapping with a reliable qubit representation of nucleotides. In the model, molecular recognition of a nucleotide triggers an intrabase entanglement corresponding to a superposition state of different tautomer forms. Then, base pairing occurs by swapping intrabase entanglements with interbase entanglements.

We demonstrate that ultracold interacting bosonic atoms in an optical lattice show sub-Poissonian on-site and inter-site atom number fluctuations. The experimental observations agree with numerical predictions of the truncated Wigner approximation. The correlations persist in the presence of multi-mode atom dynamics and even over large spatially extended samples involving several sites and large populations.

Entropic entanglement measures of a two-dimensional system of two Coulombically interacting particles confined in an anisotropic harmonic potential are discussed in dependence on the anisotropy and the interaction strength. The harmonic approximation appears exact in the strong interaction limit, allowing determination of the asymptotic expression for the linear entropy. Entanglement properties are dramatically influenced by the anisotropy of the confining potential in the strong-correlation regime.

The convergence of the Rayleigh-Ritz method with nonlinear parameters optimized through minimization of the trace of the truncated matrix is demonstrated by a comparison with analytically known eigenstates of various quasi-solvable systems. We show that the basis of the harmonic oscillator eigenfunctions with optimized frequency ? enables determination of boundstate energies of one-dimensional oscillators to an arbitrary accuracy, even in the case of highly anharmonic multi-well potentials. The same is true in the spherically symmetric case of V (r) = {\omega}2r2 2 + {\lambda}rk, if k > 0. For spiked oscillators with k < -1, the basis of the pseudoharmonic oscillator eigenfunctions with two parameters ? and {\gamma} is more suitable, and optimization of the latter appears crucial for a precise determination of the spectrum.

We have studied transition metal clusters from a quantum information theory perspective using the density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) method. We demonstrate the competition between entanglement and interaction localization. We also discuss the application of the configuration interaction based dynamically extended active space procedure which significantly reduces the effective system size and accelerates the speed of convergence for complicated molecular electronic structures to a great extent. Our results indicate the importance of taking entanglement among molecular orbitals into account in order to devise an optimal orbital ordering and carry out efficient calculations on transition metal clusters. We propose a recipe to perform DMRG calculations in a black-box fashion and we point out the connections of our work to other tensor network state approaches.

We show that the ground state energy of the translationally invariant Nelson model, describing a particle coupled to a relativistic field of massless bosons, is an analytic function of the coupling constant and the total momentum. We derive an explicit expression for the ground state energy which can be used to determine the effective mass. In addition we show that the ground state energy of a harmonic oscillator coupled to a relativistic field of massless bosons is analytic in the coupling constant.

We present a systematic construction of quantum circuits implementing Grover's database search algorithm for arbitrary number of targets. We present an operator which flips the phase of targets and evaluate its circuit complexity. We find the condition under which the circuit complexity of the database search algorithm based on this operator is less than that of a conventional one.

The dynamics of an F--center created by an oxygen vacancy on the $\mathrm{TiO_{2}(110)}$ rutile surface has been investigated using {\it ab initio} molecular dynamics. These simulations uncover a truly complex, time-dependent behavior of fluctuating electron localization topologies in the vicinity of the oxygen vacancy. Although the two excess electrons are found to populate preferentially the second subsurface layer, they occasionally visit surface sites and also the third subsurface layer. This dynamical behavior of the excess charge explains hitherto conflicting interpretations of both theoretical findings and experimental data.

We prove the unconditional security of the six-state protocol with threshold detectors and one-way classical communication. Unlike the four-state protocol (BB84), it has been proven that the squash operator for the six-state does not exist, i.e., the statistics of the measurements cannot be obtained via measurement on qubits. We propose a technique to determine which photon number states are important, and we consider a fictitious measurement on a qubit, which is defined through the squash operator of BB84, for the better estimation of Eve's information. As a result, we prove that the bit error rate threshold for the six-state protocol (12.611%) remains almost the same as the one of the qubit-based six-state protocol (12.619%). This clearly demonstrates the robustness of the six-state protocol against the use of the practical devices.

We offer a new Hamiltonian formulation of the classical Pais-Uhlenbeck Oscillator and consider its canonical quantization. We show that for the non-degenerate case where the frequencies differ, the quantum Hamiltonian operator is a Hermitian operator with a positive spectrum, i.e., the quantum system is both stable and unitary. A consistent description of the degenerate case based on a Hamiltonian that is quadratic in momenta requires its analytic continuation into a complex Hamiltonian system possessing a generalized PT-symmetry (an involutive antilinear symmetry). We devise a real description of this complex system, derive an integral of motion for it, and explore its quantization.

We survey some of the main conceptual developments in the study of PT-symmetric and pseudo-Hermitian Hamiltonian operators that have taken place during the past ten years or so. We offer a precise mathematical description of a quantum system and its representations that allows us to describe the idea of unitarization of a quantum system by modifying the inner product of the Hilbert space. We discuss the role and importance of the quantum-to-classical correspondence principle that provides the physical interpretation of the observables in quantum mechanics. Finally, we address the problem of constructing an underlying classical Hamiltonian for a unitary quantum system defined by an a priori non-Hermitian Hamiltonian.

The framework for playing three-player quantum games in an Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) type setting is investigated using the mathematical formalism of geometric algebra (GA). In this setting, the players' strategy sets remain identical to the ones in the mixed-strategy version of the classical game, which is obtained as a proper subset of the corresponding quantum game. Using GA and considering general symmetrical three-qubit pure states, we analyze the three-player quantum game of Prisoners' Dilemma.

We investigate a nonlinear localization microscopy method based on Rabi oscillations of single emitters. We demonstrate the fundamental working principle of this new technique using a cryogenic far-field experiment in which subwavelength features smaller than $\lambda$/10 are obtained. Using Monte Carlo simulations, we show the superior localization accuracy of this method under realistic conditions and a potential for higher acquisition speed or a lower number of required photons as compared to conventional linear schemes. The method can be adapted to other emitters than molecules and allows for the localization of several emitters at different distances to a single measurement pixel.